His Supreme Court shortlist is said to include conservative Appeals Court Judges Amy Coney Barrett, Thomas Hardiman, Brett Kavanaugh and Raymond Kethledge.
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“As my friend Lindsey Graham said yesterday, he said it’s as if we have four winning lottery tickets, each could be a great Supreme Court justice in their own right. A judge must be independent, must interpret the law, not make the law, must interpret statutes as written, and must interpret the Constitution as written, informed by history and tradition and precedent”, Kavanaugh said.
Before retiring in 2013, Kyl was a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will be the first to consider the nomination.
Republicans have 51 votes in the Senate and need 50 votes to confirm Trump’s nominee, assuming Vice President Mike Pence votes with them to break a tie. She rocketed to the top of Trump’s earlier list of 25 Supreme Court candidates after her performance during her confirmation hearing last fall, when Democrats cited her deep Catholic faith as a potential problem.
“This is a nightmare for red-state Democrats to oppose a highly qualified nominee, and all four of these people are highly qualified – been on the court, know what they’re doing, mainstream judges”, Mr. Still, Hardiman’s decision could be a factor if some kind of challenge eventually makes its way to the high court.
By Monday Barrett, at 46 the youngest and the only woman of the four, was being widely discounted due to her relative inexperience and her strong views as a social and religious conservative.
“I’m not sure I’m leaning anywhere on those four nominees. I am deeply honored to be nominated to fill his seat on the Supreme Court”.
While the president has been pondering his pick, aides have been preparing for a tough confirmation fight.
Raymond Kethledge of MI, who also has many high-profile supporters who see him as a positive alternative to the other three.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The pick is expected to receive backlash from Democrats as the 2018 Mid-Term Election nears closer.
At stake is nothing less than a paradigm shift on the court, with the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy handing Trump an opportunity to place a decidedly conservative stamp on the bench.
“In keeping with President Reagan’s legacy, I do not ask about a nominee’s personal opinions”.
“No one has been more dedicated to overturning Roe v. Wade than Leonard Leo”, Schumer said, referring to the landmark abortion rights ruling.
“The far right has total control of the Congress, they have total control of the administration, now they want total control of the judiciary, and I’m just not going to allow that to happen and I’m going to keep fighting against it”, he said.
Casey, who promotes himself as a moderate, relatively pro-life Democrat, could encounter reelection difficulties in the key swing state Trump carried in 2016 by unilaterally opposing the president’s nominee. Michigan’s Kethledge is on the 6th Circuit, while Indiana’s Barrett is on the 7th Circuit.
The president has been lobbied in the final hours of his selection process by both supporters and opponents of the four candidates, all of whom are federal appeals court judges with conservative records.
On average, for Supreme Court nominees who have received hearings, the hearing occurred 39 days after the nomination was formally submitted, according to the Congressional Research Service.
What is clear is that Kavanaugh’s confirmation process in a bitter midterm election year is going to be a bloody partisan fight.
Barrett has a thin resume as a judge but has amassed a formidable and respected body of scholarly work.
The Judicial Crisis Network, the main conservative television and advertising effort, announced plans Monday to spend an additional $1.4 million, on top of the $1 million already committed to support the nominee.
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Dating back to the nineteenth century, the filibuster is a procedural device that lets a numerical Senate minority effectively terminate a nomination or legislation by creating, or threatening to create, endless debate. I think each and every one of them take [s] that seriously, that personally. I’ll be deciding tonight or tomorrow sometime by 12 o’clock, and we’re all gonna be meeting at 9 o’clock.
