U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on July 18, and President Trump said he is carefully reviewing the qualifications of five women judges and will announce the justices’ nominees on July 26.
According to the Washington Post, Trump met with Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the federal Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, a conservative judge from Louisiana who is currently the most vocal candidate to replace Justice Ginsburg, at the White House on January 21.
Asked about one of the possible candidates, Judge Barbara Lagoa of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Trump said that she is very vocal and popular.
Possible candidates also include Allison Jones Rushing, a federal appeals judge for the 4th Circuit from North Carolina who, at 38, is the youngest on Trump’s list, and Kate Todd, a former White House associate attorney who now teaches federal law at George Washington University and has helped review nominations for federal judges and provided legal advice at the White House in the past, the report said.
If Justice Ginsburg’s successor is confirmed as a conservative justice nominated by Trump, the ratio of conservative to liberal judges on the Supreme Court will be 6:3, which will change the direction of U.S. constitutional review in the long run.
After Trump nominates a justice’s successor, the nominee will have to go through a Senate hearing and vote. Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate and Democrats hold 47 seats, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (21) said that 43 days before Election Day and 104 days before the end of the current Congress, the Senate has enough time to process the nomination vote.
Senator John Cornyn, a Republican, said that even if Biden wins the presidential election, the Senate will still exercise its consent authority to nominate judges to Trump’s nomination, “We’re still in office, and so is Trump.”
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