The oldest justices are Clarence Thomas (75 years old) and Samuel A. Alito Jr. (73 years old). They are expected to take advantage of the Republican presidential inauguration and step down. The pressure on them to do so will be immense. That would give Trump the opportunity to nominate two more justices in addition to the three he chose during his first term: Neil M. Gorsuch, 56. Brett M. Kavanaugh, 59 years old. and Amy Coney Barrett (52).
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. is 69 years old. I don’t think he will give Trump a chance to succeed him. Remember, this is the Chief Justice who took President Trump to task after the then-President denounced “Judge Obama.”
None of the liberal justices – Sonia Sotomayor, 69. Elena Kagan, 63 years old. Ketanji Brown Jackson, 53, is willing to go anywhere Trump is elected, even if his fate with the conservative majority is pretty grim. “I live in frustration,” Sotomayor said in a revelation last month to law students at the University of California, Berkeley.
If the thought of a younger, more conservative majority fills you with fear, it should. And this is a danger that Democrats are not emphasizing enough. Their party has profited politically from the backlash against the court’s rejection of the ruling. Roe v. Wade And President Biden plans to make threats to abortion rights a centerpiece of his campaign.
But Biden and other Democrats have been largely silent about the bigger stakes for the court. Much damage has already been done under President Trump’s strengthened majority, including vastly expanded gun rights, ending affirmative action in higher education admissions, and shackling regulators (with more to come). . But much remains to be done, and the prospect of extending this remarkable period of conservative dominance is frightening.
And the threat is asymmetric. Even if Biden is re-elected, there won’t be much change. Sotomayor, who turns 70 this year, may retire, but the rest of the court is likely to remain. A more closely divided court or liberal majority could take years or even unexpected departures.
I’ve said before that once Thomas retires, the Supreme Court will probably move to the left for the simple reason that there aren’t many conservative Supreme Court nominees. That’s not true anymore. In victory, Trump and his advisers would benefit from installing a number of staunch conservatives on lower federal courts – and have been monitoring their performance ever since.
There is no need to make wild guesses about who is most likely to be a candidate. In September 2020, the week before Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, President Trump helpfully updated his list of nominees to lower courts, including 10 jurists. There are also several Trump appointees who are not on this list but who could be considered for President Trump’s second term.
If Trump in his first term wowed potential candidates with his Ivy League resume and good looks, Trump in his second term was disappointed by some candidates’ subsequent dishonesty and lack of qualifications. They will bring their experience to the selection process. courage.
So he might fish from a completely different pond and look outside the federal judiciary, tapping instead into Republican senators like Mike Lee of Utah and Josh Hawley of Missouri. Another difference is that he will likely manage the process without the guidance of Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society, who is at odds with Mr. Trump. Rather, Mr. Trump’s choice of judges will be guided by Mike, who helped Mr. Gorsuch through the confirmation process and later served as the Senate Judiciary Committee’s highly aggressive lead nominating adviser during Mr. Kavanaugh’s nomination.・It seems likely that it will be Mr. Davis. Recently, he has led a campaign to denounce President Trump’s indictment as a politically motivated “legal stunt.”
President Trump’s shortlist is likely to include three judges on the ultra-conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Andrew Oldham, Alito’s clerk. Kyle Duncan became a target of the student movement when he spoke at Stanford Law School. Also on the list of candidates is Amr Thapar of the Sixth Circuit, who last year wrote a book praising Thomas. Eleventh Circuit Elizabeth Division. Following a student protest by a conservative speaker at Yale Law School, he joined Ho’s boycott of the school’s clerkships. Lawrence VanDyke has been a vocal opponent in the liberal-leaning 9th Circuit. and Patrick Bumatai, also of the 9th Circuit.
They are not the Republican candidates of the George W. Bush era. In most cases, President Trump’s first-term nominations will look mild by comparison. This suggests something — and it deserves more attention as President Trump’s re-election looks increasingly likely.