How Barrett is wielding enormous influence on the Court

While analysts debate Barrett’s jurisprudence, it’s easy to see which justice she didn’t align with last term: Gorsuch.

Barrett wrote four non-unanimous majority opinions since January. Gorsuch, a conservative who sometimes hews more closely to libertarianism, dissented from all four. The two agreed in full 61% of the time, a lower rate than Barrett enjoyed with any of her other four conservative colleagues.

When Barrett, in a 5-4 decision, ruled against an Indian immigrant who was being deported after he incorrectly identified as a U.S. citizen on a drivers license form, Gorsuch sided with the court’s liberals, asserting that the Department of Homeland Security misread the law and that lower courts should have been able to remedy that error.

The immigrant, Gorsuch wrote, would have been entitled to a drivers license anyway and so he didn’t have an incentive to deceive officials by checking the wrong box, as an immigration judge had ruled.

And in a move that once again underscored her influence, it was Barrett who appeared to upend one of Gorsuch’s priorities.