Republican President-elect Donald Trump is set to carry on his legacy of reshaping the federal judiciary with nominees who his allies and opponents predict will be more conservative than the nearly record 234 judges. Can, whom he placed on the bench in his first term in office.
With Republicans poised to take back control of the Senate, which must confirm judicial nominees, Trump should enjoy an easier path to filling potential vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court and the expected 100-plus seats that could potentially be up for grabs across the country. Will open in lower courts. ,
“Trump rebuilt the federal judiciary in his first term, and now he has the opportunity to cement that vision for an entire generation,” John Collins, a professor at George Washington University Law School, said in an email.
A new round of Trump-appointed, lifetime-term judges will result in a more conservative federal judiciary that will cast a skeptical eye on environmental, financial and other regulations and keep Trump’s agenda in the face of legal challenges.
Representatives for Trump did not respond to requests for comment.
During his first four years in office, Trump’s 234 judicial appointments included three U.S. Supreme Court justices, giving the high court a 6–3 conservative majority, and 54 judges were nominated to 13 intermediate appeals courts. This marks the second most judicial appointments of any president in a single term.
Those appointments shifted the judiciary to the right, with today Republican appointees making up half of all active appellate judges and holding a majority in six circuit courts. Many had ties to the influential conservative legal group the Federalist Society and remain active with the organization.
Those judges often embrace “originalism”, a legal philosophy that seeks to interpret the U.S. Constitution based on the text as understood at the time of its drafting in the 18th century.
That legal doctrine has formed the backbone of a series of rulings in favor of conservative plaintiffs in cases that have reduced abortion access, expanded gun rights and limited government regulation.
While Trump turned to the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo as an adviser on judicial nominees in his first term from 2017 to 2020, this time the Republican has surrounded himself with a variety of conservative allies focused on judicial nominees.
They include Mike Davis, a Trump ally and founder of the conservative judicial advocacy group Article III Project, who was lead counsel for the nomination of Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, then chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to the position during Trump’s first term. Are ready for. Resume that role.
‘Bearless and fearless judge’
Davis told Reuters, “I think Trump’s biggest and most consequential accomplishment of his first term was the transformation of the federal judiciary, and I hope he carries that forward with even more courageous and fearless judges in his second term.” Will increase.” For Tuesday’s election.
Davis, who worked to help confirm Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, wrote on the social media platform on Thursday.”
Some of Trump’s appointees to trial courts in his first term could be potential candidates to fill vacancies on key appeals courts, which often have the last word on cases, given how few appeals the Supreme Court hears.
Davis previously cited Florida-based U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon, the Trump appointee who dismissed the criminal case against the now-incoming president over classified documents, as the type of judge Trump calls “fearless.” Should be appointed.
Other prominent conservative trial court judges who could be eligible for promotion include U.S. District Judge Matthew Kaksmarick in Amarillo, Texas, who suspended approval of the abortion pill mifepristone. In June the U.S. Supreme Court upheld access to the pill, overturning an appellate court decision that had partially upheld Kaksmaryk’s decision.
Another rising star among conservative judges is U.S. District Judge Katherine Kimball Mizell, the Trump appointee in Tampa, Florida, who is expected to strike down the Biden administration’s Covid-19 mask mandate for airlines and other public transportation. Are known.
The scope of Trump’s ability to further reshape the judiciary will be limited by the number of vacancies he can fill.
When he took office in 2017 he inherited 108 federal judicial vacancies, the most for an incoming president since Democratic then-President Bill Clinton in 1992.
Today, there are currently 47 vacant seats in the federal judiciary and 20 more seats are expected to open in the future, assuming their current occupants stick to their stated plans to go into semi-retirement. But outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden has nominations pending to fill 28 of those 67 seats.
Another 247 justices will be eligible to go into semi-retirement over the next four years, opening up new vacancies, according to an analysis by the American Constitution Society, a progressive legal group.
But only 116 were appointed by Republicans, and research has shown that most judges today take “senior status” to make their decisions when the White House is occupied by a president of the same party who appointed them.
However, even with fewer vacancies, Collins, the law school professor, said Trump “will likely be able to lock in conservative majorities on some courts for the foreseeable future and limit or overturn liberal majorities on others.”