Who are Trump’s 25 candidates for the Supreme Court?
By
Ed Hightower
30 June 2018
With justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement set to take effect on July 31, President Trump plans to replace him with a candidate from a list he first presented during his 2016 presidential campaign.
The list of candidates was created with input from the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation, two Republican-oriented organizations that serve to guarantee the appropriate political pedigree of those on the list.
The 25-person list represents a who’s who of right-wing judicial activists, essentially guaranteeing a majority on the court who will be in a position to outlaw abortion, curb regulations on corporations and sanction dictatorial forms of government.
Below is a review of the 25 potential nominees, listing their state of residence, most recent judicial post and a brief political biography.
Amy Coney Barrett of Indiana, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Barrett is a former Notre Dame Law professor and recent Trump nominee to the appeals court, confirmed by the Senate in October 2017. A former law clerk for the arch-reactionary Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Barrett has written that her Catholic beliefs cannot be set aside when she sits on the bench. She views the birth control requirement in the Affordable Care Act as violative of religious liberty and questions the Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion. Barrett was confirmed in the Senate to her current appointment with the support of three Democrats: Joe Manchin, Joe Donnelly, and Tim Kaine.
Britt Grant of Georgia, Supreme Court of Georgia. Like virtually everyone on the list, Grant is a member of the right-wing Federalist Society, which advocates the so-called “originalist” or…