At Bloomberg Law, David Lat: Trump’s Next Supreme Court Pick Could Be One of These Four Judges. From the introduction:
"Judges are the most successful policy initiative of President Trump’s first term,” said Rob Luther, a law professor at George Mason University who worked on judicial nominations during the first Trump administration.
And President-elect Donald Trump’s most consequential transformation was that of the US Supreme Court during his first term. By appointing Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, he established a 6-3, conservative supermajority that moved the court significantly to the right.
It’s unlikely that Trump in his second term will have anywhere near the same impact on the court—because it’s already so conservative, and none of the three liberal justices would willingly give Trump a vacancy. But if Justices Clarence Thomas, 76, and Samuel Alito, 74, were to step down, Trump could replace them with like-minded but much younger jurists—possibly cementing conservative domination of the court for another generation.
With Republicans holding 53 seats in the next Senate, Trump could lose three GOP votes, including relative moderates like Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and still get his choice confirmed. This would give him the leeway to appoint a quite conservative nominee, as long as the pick is well-qualified.
The post notes three likely front-runners: Amul Thapar (6th Circuit), James Ho (5th Circuit), and Andrew Oldham (5th Circuit):
At last month’s National Lawyers Convention of the Federalist Society—which played a crucial role in picking judicial nominees in Trump’s first term, but whose involvement in his second term is uncertain—Supreme Court nominations were a leading topic of conversation. Among the attendees I spoke with, Thapar, Ho, and Oldham consistently came up as possible high-court picks.
And it adds a fourth:
On the “Advisory Opinions” podcast, the extremely well-connected Sarah Isgur also highlighted the trio of Thapar, Ho, and Oldham. But she added to the mix a dark horse candidate, Ninth Circuit [ed.: and San Diego-based] Judge Patrick Bumatay, 46—whom I identified more than two years ago, on the “Short Circuit” podcast, as a high-court contender.
Bumatay’s full-throated originalism draws heavily on Thomas’ jurisprudence. And Bumatay would be a historic pick not just as the first Asian American justice, but as the first openly gay justice.
Plus:
If Trump wants to mix things up by looking beyond these four frontrunners, a longer shortlist might include Judges Neomi Rao of the D.C. Circuit, Steven Menashi of the Second Circuit, Kyle Duncan of the Fifth Circuit, and Lawrence VanDyke of the Ninth Circuit, as well as former US solicitor general Noel Francisco and former Texas solicitor general Jonathan Mitchell.
But also from David Lat, at his substack: SCOTUS Clerk Hiring Watch: Retirement Clues? Here’s more reason to think that Justices Thomas and Alito aren’t stepping down, at least for the time being.
(Via How Appealing.)
Posted at 6:08 AM