When the Supreme Court closed out its session today, the lack of any special announcements seemed to indicate that the same nine justices would return in the fall. Just a few hours later, Anthony Kennedy transmitted his intent to retire at the end of this month to the president. Now Donald Trump has a little over three months to nominate a replacement for the courts center, potentially moving the Supreme Court even further to the Right:
Kimberly Robinson (@KimberlyRobinsn) June 27, 2018
Justice Anthony Kennedy, a conservative who provided key votes for same sex-marriage, abortion access and affirmative action, will retire from the Supreme Court.
Kennedys decision to step down could transform the Supreme Court for generations. President Donald Trump will have his second opportunity to nominate a justice and will likely replace Kennedy with a young, conservative jurist. That would create a bloc of five staunch conservative justices who could move the court further to the right and cement a conservative majority for the foreseeable future.
The move couldnt possibly be timed any better for Republicans, especially in Senate races. Mitch McConnell will want to get the confirmation wrapped up in time for the start of the next session of Congress, especially since its not entirely clear whether hell still be in charge in January. But this fight will remind Trump voters who might have lost some enthusiasm over the last year or so that elections matter. Even if McConnell manages to get someone across the finish line before the midterms, the issue will dominate the political debate and get GOP voters motivated, even those who dont especially care for Trump himself. They care about the Supreme Court, without a doubt.
However, that doesnt make a confirmation a slam dunk. Thanks to the fumblaya in Alabama, Republicans only have a 51/49 edge in the Senate. One of those is a very sick John McCain who would normally support practically any conservative jurist, and the other is Rand Paul, who has proven to be a wild card at times. If McCain cant make it to cast a vote, a 50-vote confirmation becomes a very close-run affair. Its not impossible, but its no slam dunk either.
So who gets the nod? When Trump nominated Gorsuch, the runner-up was apparently Thomas Hardiman, one of the people on his campaign list. He could stick with Hardiman, who got somewhat less effusive praise as a potential selection than Gorsuch did, or he could try for a shot at defanging Democratic opposition by nominating a woman to the post. Two women on his list, Joan Larsen and Allison Eid, got confirmed to appellate courts last fall. Another, Margaret Ryan, has served on the armed forces appellate court since 2006 and is only 54 years old. Ryan clerked with Michael Luttig and Clarence Thomas earlier in her career.
Trump has already confirmed that the next nominee will come from the same list:
Big news from the pool Trump says he will pick Anthony Kennedys replacement from his existing list of 25 potential nominees. Thats the same list he used to pick Neil Gorsuch.
Trump said Wednesday shortly after Kennedys announcement that a search for his replacement would begin immediately and he thanked the justice for his service.
A Trump-nominated successor to Kennedy would likely become the courts fifth reliable conservative, joining Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Gorsuch. Because only Thomas has declared opposition to Roe v Wade, its uncertain whether opponents of abortion would have the five votes needed to overturn it.
Replacing Kennedy might move the court more to a pro-life position, but that wont be the earthquake that some might expect. That will happen if or when one of the liberal justices on the court leaves and Trump picks the nominee. Republicans had better pick up several seats in the midterms to prepare for that eventuality, because they might lose a GOP vote or two on that basis alone.
Update: Mitch McConnell said the vote will take place this fall:
MCCONNELL: "We will vote to confirm Justice Kennedys successor this fall."
Update: In the instant handicapping, the women seem to be mainly in the lead here at Salem Media Group:
My opening line: Judge Kavanaugh 2:1; Judges Barrett and Willett 3:1; Judge Larson 4:1. The latter 3 have the advantage of having just recently been on the receiving end of a full field FBI investigation and positive votes. Judge Barrett raises the No Religious Test issue as well
Gut feeling is that among these three, Larsen may be the strongest pick. Not yet 50, strong credentials, judicial & elite law background, earned supermajority Senate support just months ago. https://t.co/qPcLQhkmf2
Im not sold on the idea of Trump nominating people who have just gotten confirmed to the appellate court, but its certainly possible. Ryan avoids that and helps McConnell by not being someone already nominated by Trump, which might help swing a couple of red-state Democrats who will be feeling the heat in the fall. And as Guy reminded me in a subsequent tweet, Ryan got confirmed by unanimous consent in 2006.
Update: Politico got the audio from a DNC committee meeting when the news came through. Theyre not happy:
How it sounded inside a DNC committee meeting the moment Justice Kennedys retirement was announced pic.twitter.com/6S9uO2JGzQ
A Trump-nominated successor to Kennedy would likely become the courts fifth reliable conservative, joining Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Gorsuch.
Roberts has not been entirely reliable and just the other day the Court cobbled together a majority comprised of Roberts, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan. That is from Carpenter v United States (22 June 2018). Roberts also upheld Obamacare.
One of the liberals might die at the bench rather than retire and a conservative replacement could lead to reconsideration of such precedents as Roe v. Wade. As it is, lib heads have been exploding the past few days.
Kennedy is 81, turns 82 next month. Ginsburg is 85. Breyer is 79, turns 80 in August.
#10. To: Justified, Banana Republican Progressive, judicial activists (#1)
Trump will be able to nominate another Progressive Activist justice to legislate from the bench, like Gorsuch. An oppressive globalist police state, more taxes and spying, with Sarah Huckabee Sanders peeking in your window.
Donnell's agenda of turning America into a globalist third world s**thole marches on...
Justice Anthony Kennedy, a conservative who provided key votes for same sex-marriage, abortion access and affirmative action, will retire from the Supreme Court.
Just to be clear. In 2015, Justice Kennedy ruled in favor of same sex marriage in a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision.
Justice Kennedy ruled in favor of factoring in race in college admissions, ruling against the reverse discrimination lawsuit 4-3.
Justice Kennedy reaffirmed the right to an abortion in 1992 in a 5-4 decision.
Justice Kennedy ruled in 2007 to force the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as pollutants in a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision.
They're still so pissed that she didn't retire so 0bama could replace her. But, no-o-o-o-o, she was too precious and couldn't just step down.
Perhaps she wanted to be replaced by the first female president. And then a funny thing happened on the way to oval office.
With the swingman likely moving from Kennedy to Roberts, the Court will make a clear move to the right. It will be a long, lonely and frustrating session for Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan. It can't be much fun to be a highly partisan Supreme Court justice and be irrelevant.
He's more the type to buy an Evil Gun and massacre some helpless people, in a church or school or at a political event. At least, he gives off that vibe.
It will be a long, lonely and frustrating session for Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan. It can't be much fun to be a highly partisan Supreme Court justice and be irrelevant.
It'll be fun for us to watch though.
This also raises the odds that 0bamaCare will repeal itself over the fee/penalty/tax. I don't see how Roberts manages to save it twice.
#23. To: Tooconservative, Wino Ginsburg (#13)(Edited)
I hear that Judge Roy Moore is available and not currently on any court.
Unfortunately Roy Moore is an old fart who's likely to croak soon, giving President Pocahontas the opportunity to nominate another justice in addition to Ruth Bader Ginsburg's replacement.
That evil old bat will hang in the rafters of SCOTUS, until Trump is gone in 2021, if not sooner.
Passed out, after sucking up too much of Anthony Kennedy's "Fine California Wine". Lesbians concerned.
#26. To: Hank Rearden, nolu chan, Vicomte13, tpaine, Liberator (#20)
Rumor has it the DL is sicker than she admits.
If only... But let's move on to who is topping the list to replace Kennedy.
Per Nice Deb, a Bloomberg reporter says the top choice is Judge Brett Kavanagh.
Judge Brett Kavanaugh is a top contender to succeed Kennedy, per a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. https://t.co/nUxpAlS7ZF Greg Stohr (@GregStohr) June 27, 2018
If that name sounds somewhat familiar -- last week a district court ruled that the CFPB was unconstitutional.
In doing so, the judge ignored the main opinion of a decision from another jurisdiction and instead adopted the reasoning of the dissent which declared the CFPB was unconstitutional.
The author of that dissent? Judge Brett Kavanagh.
And why did Kavanagh reach that decision? Glad you asked.
Courts have found the law creating the CFPB unconstitutional in that it creates a "Director" running it, who is, in theory, a member of the Executive Branch, but then puts that Director unconstitutionally beyond the reach of the actual Executive, the President, stating that he can only be fired for cause.
One court reviewing this en banc chose to say that part is unconstitutional, but it can be "severed" from the rest of the law, and the law just rewritten by judge's fiat to say the Director can be fired by the president, like any other executive officer, for any reason.
Actually, a clarification: I think the rule is that members of a committee exercising executive power can be made fire-proof (or fireable only for cause), but you can't vest that kind of unfireable power in a singular head, as a Director is.
But one district judge says, "Nah, bro," and finds that that the can-only-be-fired-for-cause provision is part of the heart of the CFPB, and therefore cannot simply be severed/written out of the bill.
As that part is unconstitutional, and cannot be severed from the bill creating the CFPB, the whole law is unconstitutional, and the CFPB is unconstitutional and null and void itself. It strikes the CFPB as a party from the suit (against various defendants, including the NFL), finding it simply has no authority to act at all, in any capacity.
Obviously, a jurist from Trump's list who is that willing to outrage the liberal establishment would make an attractive hard-Right choice for Trump. Fauxcahontas would be in full war paint, ready to scalp him since CFPB is her baby.
You are another fucking DWEEB using short term messages into political dynamite.
I can't take your messages seriously.
After long study of your posts here, I have concluded that you have been captured by some pimp from the violent cartels and have been turned out as a cartel sex slave. You spend your days servicing anemic Canadian sex tourists and swarthy Central American narco-terrorists. And they force you to post these misleading messages here at LF.
If you are being held hostage, you can signal that to us in code by "denying" that you are a cartel sex slave.
I'm sure G.I. will try to help free you from your present state of sexual degradation, granting sexual favors for as little as a peso (2 pesos for anal).
Do you possess any credentials to support or otherwise create into an authenticate summary report besides sitting around a fukin' "YEP, I can eat a pil of beans and fart on everyone."
Do you possess any credentials to support or otherwise create into an authenticate summary report besides sitting around a fukin' "YEP, I can eat a pil of beans and fart on everyone."
You're only saying that because a couple of swarthy Central American narco-terrorists are forcing you to post that. And to submit to their perverted sodomy.
I can only hope that G.I. will know how to rescue you.
I'm picturing something like Rambo IV. You, of course, will be the Damsel In Distress.
His vote will be needed for confirmation. No justice would join the Court by voting for himself. And it would thin the Senate ranks further. After Trump lost Sessions' safe AL seat via Strange and Moore, he won't go for anything that makes it harder for the Senate GOP.
I had been worried about voter turnout in the fall elections since the low-info voters who supported the prez when elected all tend to disappear and the other party picks up lots of seats in any president's first midterm.
I thought that only a major gun massacre in the fall and consequent screams by the Left for a big gungrab could arouse the voters enough to hold off Pelosi as Speaker and keep control of the Senate.
Clearly, this confirmation will be conducted more as a central GOP political issue to rouse the voters rather than as a regular judicial confirmation.
Trump got a lot of reluctant votes just for the judicial appointments. A lot of people made it clear they couldn't stand Trump but wanted to deny Dems any court appointments. This is Trump's chance to score a midterm victory with exactly that issue to bring out those reluctant voters again.
Barrett is youngest, under 50. She got attacked for being too Catholic by Feinstein, she recently had a full vetting by the FBI and Dems and libmedia.
Looks good on paper but perhaps not experienced enough. Also there will be resistance to promoting her from her current court of appeals (a very high honor) and then appointing her again so soon to a higher court like USSC.
I think the GOP may go for a strong conservative, more bold and less circumspect about it than Gorsuch. It would likely cause a Dem meltdown and provide a lot of fodder for the fall midterms. Turnout, turnout, turnout. Especially those reluctant voters who voted for Trump just for the judges.
This is probably going to be the most politicized appointment to the Court in our history. And the 2018 election may end up being all about this justice, far more than the Dem attempt to do the same with the Merrick Garland nomination in 2016.
#35. To: Tooconservative, redleghunter, Liberator (#34)
Barrett is youngest, under 50. She got attacked for being too Catholic by Feinstein,
Too Catholic?? That's a hoot considering Fineswine was raised as one and claims to have great respect for Catholicism. So does this mean that Barrett is too Progressive or too Conservative since the church has both in it's ranks?
Vegetarians eat vegetables. Beware of humanitarians!
Barrett was a law professor at Notre Dame. That's usually fairly Catholic.
Wiki:
During Barrett's hearing, she was questioned about her Catholic faith by U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein. Feinstein's line of questioning was criticized by University of Notre Dame president John I. Jenkins and Princeton University president Christopher Eisgruber.[10]
In a letter to Feinstein, Jenkins wrote:
It is chilling to hear from a United States Senator that this [Catholic faith] might now disqualify someone from service as a federal judge. I ask you and your colleagues to respect those in whom 'dogma lives loudly'which is a condition we call faith.[10]
Citing the No Religious Test Clause of the United States Constitution, Eisgruber asked U.S. Senators to "refrain from interrogating nominees about the religious or spiritual foundations of their jurisprudential views ... [b]ecause religious belief is constitutionally irrelevant to the qualifications for a federal judgeship".[11] During her hearing, Barrett said: "It's never appropriate for a judge to impose that judge's personal convictions, whether they arise from faith or anywhere else, on the law."[12]
On October 5, 2017, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted on a party-line vote of 119 to recommend Barrett and report her nomination to the full Senate.[13][14] On October 30, 2017 the Senate invoked cloture by a vote of 5442.[15] The Senate confirmed her with a vote of 5543 on October 31, 2017.[16] She received her commission on November 2, 2017.
I don't think Feinstein is Catholic. Jewish on both sides of her family, married to three guys with Jewish names, etc.
#37. To: CZ82, young bushbot, Tooconservative (#35)
Brett Kavanaugh of Maryland, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
Kavanaugh, 53, is a former clerk to the man he could replace on the Supreme Court, Justice Kennedy. He was named to the D.C. Circuit by President George W. Bush in 2003, but his confirmation was not without conflict. Kavanaugh worked with independent counsel Kenneth Starr in the investigation of President Bill Clinton, and Senate Democrats argued he was too partisan to serve on the court. His nomination languished for three years, before Kavanaugh was finally confirmed in 2006. He was sworn in by Kennedy.
Brett Kavanaugh is sworn in by Kennedy to be a judge on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2006. With him are his wife Ashley and President George W. Bush.
I've got a sneaking suspicion that this guy was recommended by Kennedy during his meeting with Trump. Could last for decades.
I've got a sneaking suspicion that this guy was recommended by Kennedy during his meeting with Trump. Could last for decades.
We'll never know. I just posted a fresh review of the supposed top 5 picks. Kavanagh doesn't look as good after I read Shapiro's estimation of his record. Kavanagh could be another weak sister, like Roberts.
With the swingman likely moving from Kennedy to Roberts, the Court will make a clear move to the right.
Astute. Even if Roberts is the new Kennedy, it will still be more conservative than having Kennedy on the Court.
I saw a paragraph that brought your remark to mind.
Kennedy has long been the Supreme Courts swing vote (though he hates that term) and thus is most often in the majority in those 5-4 cases that split along conventional ideological lines. Well, this term there were 19 such hotly split decisions, just under 30 percent of the total (a bit high but within modern norms). Of those 19 decisions, 15 featured Kennedy joining the four conservatives and none had Kennedy joining the four liberals. (Two of them did have Chief Justice John Roberts joining the liberal bloc.) That simply hasnt happened in the 13 years since Justice Samuel Alito replaced Justice Sandra Day OConnor to put Kennedy in his vaunted role as the man in the middle.
Kennedy leaving the bench in a fit of conservative glory? Roberts rising to be a swing vote as he was on 0-care and as the new swing vote? Maybe some of each?
Anyway, the concrete numbers show that Kennedy clove to the conservative SCOTUS and ignored the lib SCOTUS in his final term. And that had to be a deliberate choice. And Roberts may have known of Kennedy's intention to retire even well before Trump did, which might have made Roberts more eager to carve out his new swing vote role.
Having gotten rid of Kennedy, Roberts may well rise to be the new swing vote. Exactly as Kennedy himself became the "swing vote" following the Sandra Day O'Connor retirement. (Didja know that old bat was still hearing cases in 2016 as an adjutant judge or something? Along with a staffed federal judge's office. Yeeesh. Can't they ever just go away quietly?)