Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away on September 18th, and while the United States is reeling from this monumental loss, Trump is waiting to announce his new nomination.
Democratic leaders have continued to call out Trump for not respecting RBG’s dying wish of waiting until after the election to replace her in the Supreme Court. This wish was perhaps made in hopes that Trump will lose the upcoming election to former Vice President Joe Biden, therefore allowing Biden to make the nomination instead of Trump. There are major concerns among Democratic party leaders that Trump will replace RBG with a right-wing conservative judge, making the Supreme Court have a conservative majority after the loss of RBG. There are also calls for Trump and Senate Republicans to respect the precedent that was set when Mitch McConnell refused to vote on President Obama’s nominee in 2016 after the death of former Justice Antonin Scalia due to this death occurring in an election year.
So who are Trump’s likely picks for his nomination? There are two current front runners and both are current federal appeals judges. Trump’s first likely pick is Amy Coney Barrett. Barrett, who currently acts as a judge in the 7th circuit, has only been a judge for the past three years, meaning that if she is picked as the next Supreme Court Justice, she will have the least amount of courtroom experience. Despite her lack of real-world judicial experience, Republicans in the Senate find that she has the perfect combination of traits that they want in the next justice. Two of Barrett’s main positions are repealing the A.C.A. and Roe v. Wade, essentially removing women’s reproductive rights throughout the country.
Trump’s second likely pick is Barbara Lagoa, a current federal appeals judge in the 11th circuit. Lagoa also has a limited amount of experience in federal courts and has been a federal judge for less than a year. Lagoa is a staunch conservative and has applied her conservative Catholic views to her interpretation of the law. She also has already had a perceived breach in ethics during her time in office. She previously stated that she would recuse herself from any case that came before her that she had previously participated in as a judge. Unfortunately, this did not remain the case. Instead, while acting as a judge in the federal appeals court, she refused to recuse herself from a case that she had heard while sitting on the Florida Supreme Court.
Trump has announced in a tweet on September 22nd that he will name his nominee this Saturday, September 26th. It is unclear whether or not whoever he nominates will have the votes needed in the Senate. Senate Republicans only have enough room for three senators to vote against Trump’s choice, and two Republican Senators, Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME), have already stated that they oppose voting on the new Supreme Court Justice before the upcoming election. One thing is for certain, there will be a large amount of discontent within the United States on either side of politics after Trump’s announcement.