When Chief Justice Roberts was nominated and being considered for confirmation to the Court, the Left opposed his nomination on the grounds that he would be “too conservative” and that he would cement the so-called conservative block on the Court. Well, how’s that worked out so far?
In the lectures on the SCOTUS by this author, it is pointed out that of the 9 justices, only Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh are proud to have been members of The Federalist Society.
As has been seen in the last few days, the clear ideological split on the Supreme Court of the United States (“SCOTUS”), if there had ever been any doubts, has now been confirmed.
Although at one time rumored to have once been a member of The Federalist Society, Chief Justice Roberts apparently now disavows any connection with that group. And his votes on critical cases clearly reflect that disposition.
To the surprise of no one, Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan are not now, and have never been, members of The Federalist Society.
The Federalist Society (formally called The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies) is a group of conservatives and libertarians interested in the current state of the legal order, founded on the principles that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be.
The Federalist Society seeks both to promote an awareness of these principles and to further their application through its activities. This entails reordering priorities within the legal system to place a premium on individual liberty, traditional values, and the rule of law. It also requires restoring the recognition of the importance of these norms among lawyers, judges, law students, and professors.
In his 2016 campaign for the Presidency, notionally in order to court support from conservative and libertarian members of the legal profession, candidate Trump promised that his appointments to the federal bench as President would, for the most part, come from a group of prospective judges that had been vetted by The Federalist Society, as opposed to prospective judicial appointees who had been vetted by the American Bar Association, which had, in the minds of many in the legal profession, strayed from its original purposes and moved politically to the left fringe of the profession and American political life although for many years the ABA vetting process was considered to be the gold standard for prospective judicial nominees.
The group of prospective nominees, vetted by The Federalist Society, became known as “The List,” and consists mostly, if not entirely, of members of The Federalist Society. President Trump has kept his promise in this regard. Anyone wishing to be provided with a copy of “The List” should contact this writer offline.
So now we come to the past few weeks, in which the SCOTUS has (a) refused to hear a variety of Second Amendment cases that had been languishing in the lower courts for many years (Roberts joining in the Leftist block refusing to hear the cases); and (b) prohibited the President from ending the DACA illegal immigrant protection program (vote of 5 to 4, with Roberts in the majority).
The deciding vote in these cases, and others of concern to liberty-loving traditional conservatives, has usually been that of Roberts.
In the next four years, there is a high likelihood of at least one and perhaps two vacancies on the SCOTUS, namely Justices Ginsberg and Breyer.
Thus, the person elected as President in November will have a chance to mold the ideology of the SCOTUS for generations to come, far beyond the 4-year term of office, as long as the Senate remains in control of the same party.
If Biden were to be elected President and control of the Senate passes to Democrats, one can only speculate on how badly the Court could be changed.
Consider possible appointments to the Court of one or more of the following: Loretta Lynch; Eric Holder; Susan Rice; Samantha Power; Hillary Clinton; William Jefferson Clinton; Barack Hussein Obama; Michelle Obama; James Comey. The list of scary candidates goes on and on.
[Note that one does not even have to be a lawyer to be a Justice of the SCOTUS, so a disbarred lawyer, like Slick Willie, could certainly qualify.]
It is enough to keep a thoughtful person awake at night.
No matter what President Trump tweets about, no matter how vulgar you might think he is, the focus should rightfully be on what he has done and accomplished, not what is said on insidious social media.
To preserve our traditional America values against the vigorous assaults by the Left, we must have at least one more Justice on the SCOTUS who fervently believes in the Constitution as written.
Thus, there is only one real clear choice: vote to re-elect the President and to keep control of the Senate in the hands of the Republicans.