President Donald Trump is set to announce his nomination for the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, to fill the seat vacated by Justice Anthony Kennedy when he announced his retirement on the last day of the Supreme Court session on June 28th.
Officials and White House advisers said Trump is weighing the plus and minuses of four finalists, all of them federal appeals court judges:
Brett Kavanaugh of Washington, D.C., the favorite of the conservative legal establishment.
Thomas Hardiman of Pennsylvania, who was the runner-up to Neil Gorsuch when Trump made his first Supreme Court selection; supporters of Hardiman made a last-minute push in recent days, and aides said Trump remains impressed by him; he also enjoys the support of Trump’s sister, retired judge Maryanne Trump Barry.
Amy Coney Barrett of Indiana, who is backed by religious conservatives, and by Trump advisers who believe it will be more difficult for the Senate to vote against a female nominee.
Raymond Kethledge of Michigan, who also has many high-profile supporters who see him as a positive alternative to the other three.
The announcement will take place at 9pm on Monday, July 9. – READ MORE
[divider][/divider]Just one day before President Trump is set to announce his pick to replace retiring Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy in a primetime address from the White House, a top Democratic senator suggested that stopping the nominee is more important than the upcoming midterm elections.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., acknowledged that so-called red-state Democrats may be tempted to vote for Trump’s selection out of political necessity, but urged his colleagues Sunday to consider more than their political careers.
“Beyond the procedure, beyond the gamesmanship, it is a life-and-death important decision to be made by this court on so many issues,” the Senate minority whip said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“The men and women that I work with on the Democratic side really take this seriously,” he added, after host Chuck Todd raised the possibility that Democrats could lose their bid to retake the Senate by opposing the nominee. “They understand it’s an historic decision. It’s about more than the next election. It’s about what future the United States of America is going to chart.”
Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham called the situation a veritable “nightmare” for Democrats hanging onto their vulnerable seats in states that largely support Trump.
Those Democrats — including West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp, and Indiana’s Joe Donnelly — must choose between alienating their constituents, or trying to halt a conservative nominee who may ultimately prove unstoppable anyway because of the GOP’s slim Senate majority. – READ MORE
[divider][/divider]In a Friday op-ed article for Deseret News, a prominent newspaper in Hatch’s home state of Utah, the longtime Republican lawmaker wrote a defense of the coming nominee amid a highly polarized and evenly split Senate.
The op-ed was notable for one reason: Hatch referred to the nominee using the pronouns “her” and “she.”
“Just as he did with Neil Gorsuch, the president has promised to nominate an impartial judge, a wise and seasoned jurist committed to upholding the Constitution at all costs,” Hatch wrote. “But no matter the nominee’s background or credentials, progressives will do everything they can to paint her as a closet partisan, if not an outright extremist.”
He added: “As the senior member of the Judiciary Committee, I will fight to keep jurisprudence as the sole focus of our confirmation hearings. And I will devote all my energies to ensuring that we confirm the kind of Supreme Court justice America needs: a justice who says what the law is, not what she wants it to be; a justice who calls balls and strikes instead of swinging for the fences; a justice whose foremost allegiance is to the American people and to the Constitution.”
Trump’s shortlist of potential nominees has been narrowed down to just a few candidates. Amy Coney Barrett, a circuit court judge, is the only woman on the list at the moment. – READ MORE
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