In speaking to the Council for National Policy on Friday President Trump spoke of his success in transforming the country’s judicial system:
By the time we are finished, we will have in excess of 300 [federal judges confirmed], including the court of appeals, and of course two very exceptional Supreme Court justices….
We could have two, to three, to four, maybe even five [vacancies to fill in the next four years], but four is not a stretch at all. That would mean the entire balance of the court doesn’t just shift. It becomes dominant.
I can tell you, it’s driving [Democrats] crazy.
They already are crazy. Two Democrat candidates for the presidency have called for packing the high court, bringing the number of justices to 15 from the present nine, and installing term limits of 18 years instead of lifetime appointments.
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The Democrat Party’s platform, which was approved last week at its convention, calls for adding more judges to federal trial and appeals courts, expressing it as “the need for structural court reforms to increase transparency and accountability.”
Make no mistake about it: Those words hide the true intentions of the Democrats were they to win control of the government in November. Brian Fallon, executive director of the liberal group Demand Justice, said, “It is now officially the position of the Democratic Party that the status quo of our politicized court system is unacceptable.… The judiciary must be reformed.”
Richard Wolf, writing in USA Today, said the future of the Republic “hangs in the balance,” and that even with a Democrat victory, “it would take time for Democrats to erase Trump’s imprimatur on the federal courts.” He further wrote, “Failure to counter Trump’s drive to create a conservative judiciary could doom [our] entire liberal agenda.”
That agenda includes abortion rights, gun controls, LBGTQ privileges, open immigration, campaign finance reform, restrictions on religious expression, and climate change legislation.
The Democrats are already running ads warning that “the future of the Supreme Court is on the line” in November, that “Donald Trump has hijacked our Supreme Court with far-right justices like Brett Kavanaugh who will serve for decades after Trump leaves office. We can’t afford any more Brett Kavanaughs, or our court will be his court.”
Packing the courts would be a heavy lift. Just as in 2016, a majority of registered voters consider the Supreme Court “very important,” while the most liberal Supreme Court justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is also the oldest, has firmly stated, “If anything would make the court look partisan, it would be that — one side saying ‘When we’re in power, we’re going to enlarge the number of judges, so we would have more people who would vote the way we want them to.”
Among the possible vacancies would be Ginsburg, 87; Stephen Breyer, 82; Clarence Thomas, 72; and Samuel Alito, 70.
The president’s 53 appeals court judges have already helped to “flip” three of the nation’s regional appeals courts from being dominated by Democratic presidents’ nominees to those of Republican presidents.
If the Democrats lose in November, they are not without weapons to keep the president from continuing his transformation of the courts. As Trump’s nominees are being vetted by the Federalist Society, they are no doubt being warned of the “gauntlet” they will have to endure during the confirmation process, using the travesty of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings as a warning. The prospect of being skinned alive in front of millions viewing the hearings is likely to reduce the number and perhaps the quality of the nominees Trump will be able to find to offer to fill those vacancies.
It has come down to this: Trump’s lasting legacy of ending the rush to tyranny and restoring the Republic under the Constitution and the rule of law is what the Democrats and their sycophants in the media fear the most.
Image: Phillip Nelson/iStock/Getty Images Plus
An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American, writing primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at [email protected].
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