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Judging Trump’s Judges
I still don’t believe Trump is a conservative on domestic policy or responsible enough to lead our nation’s foreign policy. But he is starting to unify the party with the right moves, if his list of potential appointments to the Supreme Court are any sign.
Everyone on the list is an outstanding legal conservative. They are also all younger, smart, and committed. They would excel in any comparison with whom Hillary Clinton would appoint to the Supreme Court. Several of the possibilities, such as Tom Lee of Utah, Allison Eid of Colorado, and David Stras of Minnesota, are former law clerks of Justice Clarence Thomas, while others, such as Steve Colloton of Iowa and Joan Larsen of Michigan, clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia. They are joined by other well-known judicial conservatives, such as Diane Sykes, Don Willet, Ray Kethledge, and Bill Pryor.
These names are a Federalist Society all-star list of conservative jurisprudence. In the interests of full disclosure, I count several of them as colleagues and friends. It is a good sign that, on one of a President’s most important decisions, Trump clearly turned to the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation for advice. Despite his anti-Bush rhetoric, Trump also owes a debt to the Bush administration. Many of the Trump possibilities were appointed by Bush or held positions in his administration. While the Bush administration’s foreign and domestic policies remain a source of debate for Republicans today, Conservatives must agree that most of Bush’s judicial appointments were stellar.
The other promising sign is that Trump’s advisers have looked beyond the lower federal courts to include potential nominees from the state supreme courts. State supreme court justices will have special sensitivity to the balance between federal power and state sovereignty. Many have run for office and already know what it is like to be attacked by the Left. They may prove more immune to the New York-Washington liberal media/academic elite that has swayed Justice Anthony Kennedy and other Republican appointees before him.
It also doesn’t hurt that many of the possibilities are from battleground states in the coming November elections. Trump’s team clearly shows respect for the voters in Colorado, Minnesota, Utah, Michigan, and Texas, where he has named state Supreme Court justices who have run for election.
I am thrilled by this list. But that said, I cannot trust Trump to keep his word. He has already flip-flopped on so many issues, before, during, and after the campaign. How do we know he would not start wheeling and dealing on judicial appointments if he were to win the Oval Office?
Published in General
This isn’t a sporting event. The next election always counts whether you’re tired or not. What’s more, winning with a man who isn’t conservative, won’t govern conservatively, and will discredit conservatism and the party of conservatives is no win at all. Its a defeat which only ensures more defeat.
I never thought I’d be asked to consider voting for a Republican candidate who thinks that Supreme Court justices sign bills and conduct investigations. Sad.
So have we decided whether that’s a good list of judges to choose from?
I have been asked to vote for a man who is not conservative in every election since 1984.
Come to think of it, the only conservative since WWII was Reagan.
I do not believe electing Trump = the end of conservatism. I think it is strong than that.
And somehow the whole, “Let them get elected and the people will see how bad they are and blame them” has never worked against the Dems, so I don’t think it will happen against the GOP.
You should have learned by now that there is a different set of rules for Dems, but that said, the Dems have paid a price for electing bad presidents. They’ve either lost the presidency (Carter) or lost the congress (Clinton and Obama) and been thwarted every time. Also, the idea that any of the GOP candidates since Reagan was ever in the league of Trump in terms of conservative heterodoxy, abysmal character, and potential for utter catastrophe is a manifestly ridiculous equivalency to try and draw. Anyway, enjoy your candidate. I won’t vote for him. Ever.
Trump is not my candidate, nor am I saying you should vote for him.
All I am asking for is that you don’t cast anyone who votes for him as a dupe or stupid.
But, clearly, you don’t have that level of grace in your heart, and are hellbent on dismissing anyone who votes for Trump in exactly that way.
It is not attractive at all.
Well you seem able to reconcile yourself to unattractive things, so I suppose it’s my lucky day. People are fooling themselves if they allow themselves to believe that Trump is in any way a safer bet than Clinton, and I won’t stop pointing it out as long as people keep trying to feed me the line that Trump is somehow acceptable. He is unacceptable and he does not deserve my vote or that of anyone else that professes to care about conservative governance.
I am not telling you he is acceptable, I am saying he is remotely better than Clinton.
Please stop putting words into my mouth. Listen to what I am saying.
You are going to get Clinton or Trump as president in 2017. There is no other option unless someone dies.
They are both equally bad in different ways. This election is lost one way or the other. There is no salvaging silver linings from either outcome. The focus now is to mitigate the damage Trump will do to conservatism as a movement. The fact that Trump is not conservative and in no way represents or embodies conservative ideas has to be made as loudly, plainly, and repeatedly as possible now.
So then, really, you should be voting for Clinton, since you want her to win and Trump to lose.
Please explain, in light of the above why that is not what you will be doing.
Again, nonsense. Helping Clinton get a mandate doesn’t help conservatism at all. At this point I don’t think it matters who wins, what I think matters is making very clear conservatism is something very different than what Trump is promising.
Uh huh.
Brilliantly refuted.
I don’t care whether you personally comprehend the basic truth of this, but the fact is that if Hillary Clinton wins but gets the least votes since her husband, and an unprecedented number of ballots go third party or write-in it will send a message about the weakness of Clinton’s support. What’s more, if voters return a GOP house and senate while rejecting Trump, it will show that the GOP is not Trump’s party.
I found this post important, for a simple reason. I now know that John Yoo says that everyone on the list of potential SCOTUS nominees released by Trump is a solid conservative.
That’s good enough for me.
I don’t say this lightly. There is a very, very short list of people in this country who I completely trust on this issue. John Yoo, Richard Epstein, and, um, maybe someone else. Maybe Ted Cruz.
This saves me time. I don’t have to look at the list. I don’t have to read any other articles, or read any opinions by the potential nominees. They have the Yoo seal of approval.
By the way, per post #49 above, they have the Epstein seal of approval, too.
By the way, those who aren’t egghead lawyer-nerds like me might not realize how big a deal it is to have John Yoo and Richard Epstein giving us their opinions and thoughts here at Ricochet.
Troy Senik generally starts the Law Talk podcast with a joke about Yoo and Epstein being something like the “Laurel and Hardy of the conservative legal movement.” They are not.
They’re more like the Grant and Sherman of the conservative legal movement.
For their service to Ricochet they each should be honored with a laurel and hardy handshake.
1,587 bonus points for most adroit Blazing Saddles reference. I stand in awe.