Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, released a list of eleven candidates to fill the vacancy on the court created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
Advertisement
Among the judicial candidates, Sykes, a judge on the federal appeals court in Chicago, is the oldest at 58, while Stras, a justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court, is the youngest at 41.
“If our president is Donald Trump, we just got a crystal-clear picture of who he’d pick to replace a Supreme Court justice: He just released a list of 11 judges he would considering nominating-including a judge who upheld a law requiring doctors to use scare tactics to impede reproductive rights…”
This isn’t the first time Sykes’ name has been floated for the Supreme Court.
A former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice is on Republican presidential candiate Donald Trump’s short list of people that he’d consider nominating to the U.S. Supreme Court. The federal appeals court judges on the list included Steven M. Colloton of the 8th Circuit, a former clerk to late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and Raymond M. Kethledge of the 6th Circuit, who clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy. In addition, Lee’s father, Rex, served as solicitor general in the Reagan administration, and his brother, Sen.
To be sure, the makeup of the list comes as no surprise.
Adding a Latino or Asian-American justice could make the court more sympathetic to immigration reform.
Scalia’s death has sparked a political battle for control of the Supreme Court, as it leaves the court with four liberal-leaning justices and four conservative-leaning justices. Sound off in the comments.
They include Judge William Pryor of the Atlanta-based federal appeals court, who has called the landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide the “worst abomination in the history of constitutional law”.
There are enough temperate, principled conservatives on the list to be encouraged. President Barack Obama nominated judge Merrick Garland to fill the seat, but Senate Republicans have refused to take up the nomination, saying the next president should fill the seat.
The brash billionaire faces the challenge of convincing many conservatives they should vote for him after a divisive primary campaign marked by his inconsistent and sometimes harsh policy positions, autocratic inclinations and uncivil, insult-laden rhetoric. “They would move the needle even further to the right on the Supreme Court”.
The list is aimed at pleasing conservative critics skeptical of Trump.
On Hannity’s Wednesday evening show, Trump said the Federalist Society – an organization of conservative and libertarian lawyers – vetted the judges on his list and the conservative Heritage Foundation reviewed it.
Advertisement
The lack of diversity in Trump’s choices – all Republican legal minds and only three women – hasn’t gone unnoticed by observers who weighed on social media Wednesday afternoon. “Whether a President Trump could actually counted on to pick folks like this is a different question”.
