Trump as soon as Monday will announce a batch of picks for 10 judicial posts, including five nominees for the powerful federal appeals courts, according to a person familiar with the matter. He must not be allowed to fill critical circuit court vacancies with ultra-conservative, right-wing judges in the same vein as his pick for the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said each nominee was chosen "for their deep knowledge of the law" and commitment to the Constitution. Judges Larsen and Stras were on Mr. Trump's original list of 21 judges he said he'd consider for the Supreme Court, and the group has sterling credentials.
David Stras, an associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, and Joan Larsen, a member of the Michigan Supreme Court, will be nominated for positions on the Eight and Sixths Circuits of the federal appeals court.
She is a graduate of Northwestern University School of Law and clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court's decision in June striking down abortion restrictions in Texas still leaves appeals courts with the job of deciding which types of limits to permit. Murphy, a Faribault native, is a former Minnesota District Court judge and served on the federal court since 1994.
After the briefing, the White House made the list of judicial nominations public.
Although Supreme Court cases get the most media play, it's the federal appeals courts that arguably have the largest impact on shaping the law, with the lower courts hearing 35,000 cases per year as compared to only about 100 per year on the Supreme Court.
Trump had one judicial nominee pending before Monday.
Conservative allies of the Trump administration say White House officials have worked diligently since Trump's inauguration in January to comb through suggested nominees, vet them and prepare them for nomination.
Widespread Calls For A Special Prosecutor After Trump's Firing Of FBI Director
Trump briefly spoke to reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday after a closed meeting with Russia's foreign minister. But the FBI Director is never empowered to supplant federal prosecutors and assume command of the Justice Department.
Trump said last month that he is considering breaking up the 9th Circuit, a federal appeals court that covers Western states and which has always been a target of Republicans.
Damien Schiff, a senior attorney at the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation, for the Court of Federal Claims. A federal court of appeals has recently cited that language in rejecting a similar argument by the Trump administration in favor of its immigration ban. President Obama made 331 judicial appointments, and his nominees to the federal appeals courts now represent about a third of the judges.
Still, Committee for Justice President Curt Levey said Senate Democrats are likely to slow the confirmation process by exploiting debate time at a record level.
"I especially want to express our gratitude to [Senate Republican Leader] Mitch McConnell for all that he did to make this achievement possible", Trump said.
The term "court packing" generally refers to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's attempt to-well-pack the court-one court in particular, the Supreme Court. Thapar is now a federal district judge (the trial court in the federal system) in Kentucky.
RUSSELL WHEELER: Just as they held the Merrick Garland seat open on the Supreme Court, they also held open an very bad lot of vacancies on the district courts and the court of appeals.
In the Trump era - with a Senate confirmation process now subject to a simple majority vote, thanks to McConnell and Senate Republicans - it is impossible to imagine any stronger or more able steward of Justice Kennedy's legacy than Kennedy himself.
Oh, and by the way, can we disband the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals while we're at it? They've promised close scrutiny of those nominees if that genteel tradition survives.
Comments