Trump Prepares to Reshape the Federal Judiciary

Conservative voters hope that Republican presidents appoint judges who seek to honor the original intent behind a statute and exercise judicial restraint.

President Donald Trump seeks to do just that. He’s spoken of breaking up the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the same court that blocked his attempts to protect the American people by temporarily suspending immigration from several Middle East and African Muslim countries.

The Washington Times reported that the president is ready to appoint conservative judges to federal appeal and district courts. An excerpt:

Sources close to the process said Mr. Trump will nominate Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larsen and Louisville, Kentucky attorney John K. Bush to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals; Minnesota Supreme Court Justice David Stras to the 8th Circuit; University of Notre Dame law professor Amy Coney Barrett to the 7th Circuit, and Alabama lawyer Kevin Newsom to the 11th Circuit.

Justices Larsen and Stras were on the president’s list of conservative judges whom he said during the campaign he would consider for the Supreme Court.

The president also will appoint four judges to district court seats.

With the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch as an associate justice to the U.S. Supreme Court, the president is on track to create a friendlier bench, one less inclined to make new law.

“This is just a down payment,” John Malcolm of the Heritage Foundation said of the nominees. “Starting with a Supreme Court vacancy, which has now been filed, President Trump certainly has a very good opportunity early on to have an impact on the federal bench,” Malcolm said.”

The White House announced the president’s nominations on Monday.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore (Creative Commons) – Some rights reserved

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