Trump’s decision to release his list of potential judicial nominees during his 2016 campaign was a master stroke. But if Biden were to release his list, the political outcome could be very different.
Democrat Senators Chuck Schumer, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Debbie Stabenow support Biden’s reluctance to release his list of potential Supreme Court nominees the way President Trump did in May 2016.
On a conference call on Wednesday, Whitehouse said, “I’m not advising him [Biden], but I wouldn’t recommend it.” Schumer agreed.
“So do I,” said Debbie Stabenow, a fourth term Senator from Michigan and Chair of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee.
She added:
I have great confidence and I know my colleagues feel the same, great confidence in Joe Biden’s capacity to put forward judges that are competent, that have the best interests of the American people at heart, that will care about the Constitution and an independent judiciary and basically begin to unwind what we are seeing that the Republicans have been doing.
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Pressure has been building on the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee for months to release his list. It would, said CBS News, “galvanize his moderate base and bring along reluctant progressives.” It would, according to Mellissa Murray, a law professor at New York University, “excite parts of the Democratic base.”
Suggestions abound. Since Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is so popular among liberals, Biden should tie his campaign to her, promising to nominate individuals of similar ideology to the top bench. He’s reportedly considering naming a black woman as his running mate. It would support his promise to nominate the first black woman to the high court.
Back in April a Biden campaign spokesman gave a pablum response to the question:
As chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Joe Biden was proud to oversee and support the confirmation of Justices Ginsburg and Breyer and lead the fight against many Reagan judicial nominees with horrible records on civil rights and civil liberties, like Judge [Robert] Bork.
As Vice President, he advised President Obama on the selection of Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, and played a major role in winning their confirmation….
As president, Biden would appoint judges who share his values and would protect the Constitution, and has promised to make history by appointing the first African-American woman to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Those “values” include more gun controls, funding and legislation to support the faux religion of climate change, and voting rights for every individual in the country, including illegals and felons.
According to Carrie Severino, president of the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, Trump’s decision to release his list of nominees during his campaign was a master stroke. According to exit polls, the high court was the top issue for one out of every five voters. Of those, nearly three out of five of them went for Trump.
Severino applauded Trump for releasing his list: “By releasing his list in 2016, Trump assured Americans that he cared about the future of our courts and the rule of law…. And [he] kept his promise.”
Indeed. So far Trump has filled more than 200 federal District Court vacancies and nominated 51 new appellate judges.His confirmed nominees include, of course, Supreme Court Judges Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
Demand Justice, the left-of-center advocacy group that supports liberal judicial nominees and opposes conservatives, has come up with a list of its own. But Biden hasn’t bitten.
David Harsanyi, writing for National Review, hopes Biden caves and releases his list. Whoever is on the list would be sure to offend people on the liberal left, creating dessension in the ranks, and would provide juicy targets for Trump during the presidential campaign.
It would also scare complacent conservatives who might otherwise sit out the election, thinking Trump already has it in the bag. Wrote Harsanyi: “Biden’s list would offer Republicans an opportunity to highlight, with great specificity, the kind of radicals [President Biden] would appoint.”
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An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at [email protected].
