WASHINGTON (Tribune News Service) — A Metairie, La., native who's built a bright career outside Louisiana as a conservative legal scholar finds herself just steps away from a possible lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, a frontrunner as President Donald Trump ponders potential picks over the weekend.

If Amy Coney Barrett, 46 and a 1990 graduate of St. Mary's Dominican High School in New Orleans, is ultimately nominated and confirmed, she would be the first justice from Louisiana since Edward Douglass White Jr. served on a court that more than a century ago remade business law and entrenched racial segregation for generations.

Barrett now serves on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago and was not available for an interview. A standout student through high school, college and law school, Barrett's glittering career has largely followed a course she predicted for herself two decades ago – except for her not returning to her home state.

"Right now, I plan to practice law for a while, get married, start a family and then maybe teach law," Barrett told the East Jefferson Picayune in 1998. "That way, I can combine two careers I really love – the law and teaching."

President Trump nominated Barrett to the appellate court in 2017 and she joined the bench less than a year ago following a bruising confirmation battle. Her deep Roman Catholic faith and views on hot-button social issues became a pointed line of questioning.

Now Barrett, until recently a longtime law professor at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, is widely believed to be among two or three top candidates the president is considering to replace retiring Justice Anthony M. Kennedy on the nation's highest court.

Barrett's confirmation hearing for the 7th Circuit post drew headlines after Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, told Barrett that "the dogma lives loudly in you" – a reference to Catholic teaching on abortion. Feinstein said it was "of concern."

Feinstein said her questions stemmed from articles Barrett had written about the ethical and moral challenges facing a devout Catholic judge in certain cases, but nonetheless they provoked outrage among Catholics and Christian conservatives who accused the California senator of a bigoted attack on Barrett's religion. The Senate voted 55-43 to confirm Barrett, which included support from Democrats Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Tim Kaine of Virginia, and Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

Barrett described herself as a faithful Catholic during the hearing but said she wouldn't let her faith interfere with her duties as a judge. She pledged to uphold the law and binding higher court precedents.

Archbishop Gregory Aymond of New Orleans called Feinstein's questioning "a chilling reminder that religious freedom is eroding in the United States" in an op-ed for the Clarion-Herald, a New Orleans Catholic newspaper.

Aymond also called Barrett a "woman of integrity" for defending both her faith and professionalism.

But Barrett, like nearly every major federal judicial nominee, will almost certainly be grilled over her views on abortion, gay marriage and other polarizing issues. Given the Catholic Church's strong positions, and Barrett's devout faith, there's a decent chance at least some senators will again seek to probe her religious convictions.

Some critical of her potential appointment to the nation's highest court have noted her affiliation with People of Praise, a tight-knit group of conservative Christians, most of whom are Catholic. The group's supporters have likened it to a collection of people who enter covenants with a community or make religious vows. Barrett's father has served as the group's leader in New Orleans.

The nominee will almost certainly be in for a vicious confirmation fight in a narrowly split and deeply divided U.S. Senate as the midterm elections approach. The continued absence of ailing U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, leaves Republicans with a 50-49 majority.

The stakes are likely to be particularly high given the role Kennedy, an 81-year-old justice appointed by former Republican President Ronald Reagan, has played on the bench. Kennedy is widely seen as a swing vote on the court, siding with conservatives on a range of issues but joining liberals on a series of key decisions, including authoring the court's decision legalizing gay marriage and a series of decisions scaling back the use of life-without-parole prison sentences.

Legal observers see Barrett as a rock-solid conservative vote who could tilt the court's balance. She's largely avoided publicly stating how she'd vote on potential cases but has made critical references to the Supreme Court's polarizing, landmark 1973 decision in Roe vs. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide.

She belonged to a pro-life faculty group at Notre Dame and some commentators have seen hints at a willingness to overturn previous Supreme Court precedent in her academic writings. She's widely viewed by those on both sides of the issue as sympathetic to the pro-life cause.

She appears to be the favorite potential pick among social-conservative activist groups, who've campaigned for her appointment. Other Republicans have lined up behind another frontrunner, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who sits on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and has established a lengthy record of pro-business rulings.

Barrett's lack of judicial experience – she's spent less than a year in her current post on the 7th Circuit, which hears cases from federal district courts in Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin, and hadn't previously worked as a judge – is likely one of the largest hurdles she'll need to overcome.

Barrett is the oldest of Mike and Linda Coney's seven children. She grew up in Old Metairie and attended St. Catherine of Siena for elementary school. The family are longtime members of the St. Catherine of Siena Parish, where her father – also an attorney – serves as a permanent deacon. He declined an interview request.

Barrett distinguished herself as an outstanding student at St. Mary's Dominican, an all-girls private Catholic institution sponsored by the Dominican Sisters of Peace. She attended Rhodes College, a private liberal arts school in Memphis, Tennessee, where she studied English literature and graduated with an array of honors. She then earned her law degree at Notre Dame, where she finished at the top of her class.

In the two years after finishing law school, Barrett landed clerkships with Judge Laurence Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and then with the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a towering legal figure widely admired on the right.

"To tell the truth, I feel a little stunned," a 25-year-old Barrett, then unmarried and known as Amy Coney, told a reporter with the East Jefferson Picayune in 1998, shortly after being tapped for the clerkship with Scalia. "I feel a sense of accomplishment, yet at the same time, it all hasn't really sunk in. I'm a bit overwhelmed." She also told the paper that her plan was to return to Louisiana to launch her career and raise a family.

She spent several years as a litigator at the well-regarded Washington, D.C., boutique firm of Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin and taught law courses at George Washington University in D.C. and the University of Virginia. She joined the faculty at Notre Dame University's law school in 2002.

Barrett and her husband, Jesse, a federal prosecutor, have seven children, including two adopted Haitian children. In April, her former New Orleans high school, St. Mary's Dominican High School, named her their alumna of the year, recognizing Barrett "as a woman who instills Christian moral values while urging the practice of ethical behaviors as demonstrated through her dedication to family, public service or career."

White, Louisiana's only U.S. Supreme Court justice, served on the court from 1894 until his death in 1921.

The son of a state governor, White grew up on a Lafourche Parish sugar plantation and fought for the Confederacy as a teenager before becoming an attorney and politician. President Grover Cleveland nominated him to the Supreme Court, and during his tenure he formulated a major principle of antitrust law but also cast votes in favor of several infamous decisions upholding legalized racial segregation. The court's Plessy vs. Ferguson decision, which upheld New Orleans' practice of segregating streetcars, gave rise to the legal principle – in effect for six decades – of allowing "separate but equal" accommodations for people of different races.

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