President Donald Trump could fill the federal bench seats with strict constitutionalists, Paul Strand said in a column in the CBN News.
“President Obama picked left-leaning jurists and George W. Bush safe, non-controversial nominees,” Strand said. “But Trump has been nominating judges in the mold of the late Antonin Scalia, who gave first priority to the U.S. Constitution and to the law as it’s written, rather than coming up with his own interpretations.”
There are more than 100 judge vacancies and once chosen, their influence could “last 40,50 years and will have an enormous impact on the future of our country,” said Leonard Leo, of the Federalist Society and adviser for the president.
“This president has an opportunity to potentially fill as many as 40 percent of the seats on the federal bench,” Leo said. “And that will just be transformative.”
Most of Trump’s own picks will sit on lower courts, where about 99 percent of federal cases are dealt with.
“There was a decided leftward tilt by some of these courts during the Obama administration,” said John Malcolm, of the Heritage Foundation. “So I think from a conservative standpoint, getting that shift by the judiciary turned back in the right direction is incredibly important to the direction of the law.”
Meanwhile, Democrats are fighting back against filling the federal courts with judges like the late Antonin Scalia, a strict constitutionalist.
“The Democrats insisted on 30 hours of debate on (Idaho nominee) David Nye even though at the end of the day he was confirmed a hundred to nothing,” Malcolm said. “He was always going to be confirmed. But just to eat up floor time, the Democrats insisted on 30 hours of debate.”
Leo said that Trump’s decision to choose constitutionalist judges is a major reason people voted for him.
“The president loves America and he understands that the Constitution and in particular the Constitution the way the Framers meant it to be has something to do with our exceptional character and quality as a country.”
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Publication date: November 8, 2017
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