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With the advice and consent of the United States Senate, the president of the United States appoints the members of the Supreme Court of the United States, which is the highest court of the federal judiciary of the United States. Following his victory in the 2016 presidential election, Republican Donald Trump took office as president on January 20, 2017, and faced an immediate vacancy on the Supreme Court due to the February 2016 death of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump had released two lists of potential nominees to the Supreme Court. After taking office, he nominated Neil Gorsuch to succeed Scalia, and Gorsuch was confirmed in April 2017. In November 2017, five more names were added to the previous lists of potential nominees. In June 2018, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement, creating a second vacancy on the Supreme Court. In early July 2018, Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh as his replacement; Kavanaugh was confirmed on October 6, 2018. Following the death of Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on September 18, 2020, Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett as her replacement on September 26, 2020. Exactly a month later on October 26, 2020, Barrett was confirmed by a vote of 52–48.
The Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett confirmations were enabled by a rule change made by Senate Republicans in 2017, which applied the so-called nuclear option to Supreme Court nominees and allowed nominations to be advanced by a simple majority vote rather than the historical norm of a three-fifths supermajority vote. [1] Leonard Leo played a crucial role in selecting Trump's appointees and helping them successfully navigate their Senate confirmation hearings. [2] [3]
Following Trump's reelection to a second, non-consecutive term in the 2024 presidential election, and entering office with a solid Republican majority in the Senate, observers noted that he would likely have the opportunity to appoint several more justices. [4] Speculation on potential outgoing justices who might be replaced centered on Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. [4] Should both Thomas and Alito retire and their successors be appointed by Trump, he would become the first president since Dwight D. Eisenhower to personally appoint a majority of the Supreme Court.
President Donald Trump began his term in January 2017 with a vacancy to be filled as a result of the February 2016 death of Justice Antonin Scalia. As three of the Court's justices at the time—Ruth Bader Ginsburg (born 1933), Anthony Kennedy (born 1936) and Stephen Breyer (born 1938)—were aged 78 or older, speculation arose that additional vacancies could occur during Trump's four-year presidential term. [5] Because Ginsburg and Breyer were part of the liberal wing of the Court and Kennedy was a swing vote who often aligned with them on social issues, many top political analysts saw Trump's term as a chance for Republicans to reshape the court significantly towards a more conservative vision of the law. [6] [7] On June 27, 2018, this became a real possibility when Justice Kennedy officially announced his retirement. [8] Following the death of Ginsburg on September 18, 2020, [9] and the subsequent confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett on October 26, 2020, [10] the Supreme Court had the following nine justices:
Name | Appointed | Appointed by | Law school (JD or LLB) |
---|---|---|---|
John Roberts (Chief Justice) | 2005 | George W. Bush | Harvard University |
Clarence Thomas | 1991 | George H. W. Bush | Yale University |
Stephen Breyer | 1994 | Bill Clinton | Harvard University |
Samuel Alito | 2006 | George W. Bush | Yale University |
Sonia Sotomayor | 2009 | Barack Obama | Yale University |
Elena Kagan | 2010 | Harvard University | |
Neil Gorsuch | 2017 | Donald Trump | Harvard University |
Brett Kavanaugh | 2018 | Yale University | |
Amy Coney Barrett | 2020 | University of Notre Dame |
On February 13, 2016, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia died while vacationing at Cibolo Creek Ranch near Marfa, Texas. [12] Scalia's death marked just the second time in 60 years that a sitting Supreme Court justice died. [13] This resulted in there being a Supreme Court vacancy during the last year of Barack Obama's presidency.
Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader, stated that the new president, whoever won the 2016 election, should replace Scalia, while President Obama stated that he planned to nominate someone to replace Scalia on the Supreme Court. [14] On February 23, the 11 Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee signed a letter to McConnell stating their intention to withhold consent on any nominee made by Obama, and that no hearings would occur until after January 20, 2017, when the new president took office. [15] [16] On March 16, 2016, Obama nominated then-chief judge Merrick Garland (of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit), to replace Scalia. [17] After Garland's nomination, McConnell reiterated his position that the Senate would not consider any Supreme Court nomination until a new president took office. [17] Garland's nomination expired on January 3, 2017, with the Senate having taken no action on it. [18]
Trump rejected any move by Obama to fill the vacancy, maintaining that picking a successor to Scalia should be done by the next president. [19] During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump released two lists of potential Supreme Court nominees. On May 18, 2016, he released a short list of 11 judges for nomination to the Scalia vacancy. [20] Then, on September 23, 2016, he released a second list of 10 possible nominees, this time including three minorities. [21] Both lists were assembled by lawyers associated with the Federalist Society and The Heritage Foundation. [22]
Days after Trump's inauguration, Politico named three individuals as the front-runners for Scalia's position: Neil Gorsuch, Thomas Hardiman and Bill Pryor, with Trump reportedly later narrowing his list down to Gorsuch and Hardiman. [23] [24] At the time of the nomination, Gorsuch, Hardiman, and Pryor were all federal appellate judges who had been appointed by President George W. Bush. [25] President Trump and White House counsel Don McGahn interviewed those three individuals as well as Judge Amul Thapar of the U.S. District Court for Eastern District of Kentucky in the weeks before the nomination. [22] Trump announced Gorsuch as his nominee on January 31. [22] [26] The Senate confirmed Gorsuch by a 54–45 vote on April 7, 2017, with votes from 51 Republicans and 3 Democrats. [27] He was sworn into office as an associate justice of the Supreme Court on April 10. [28]
On June 27, 2018, Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement from the Supreme Court, effective July 31, [29] [30] giving Trump an opportunity to send a second Supreme Court nominee to the Senate for confirmation. Kavanaugh was officially nominated on July 9, selected from among a list of "25 highly qualified potential nominees" considered by the Trump Administration. [31] [32] Kavanaugh's nomination was officially sent to the Senate on July 10, 2018, and confirmation hearings began on September 4. The hearings took longer than initially expected over objections to the withholding of documents pertinent to Kavanaugh's time in the Bush administration as a lawyer, and due to the presence of protestors. [33] [34]
On September 16, 2018, Christine Blasey Ford alleged a then-17 year old Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in 1982, in what she described as an attempted rape. [35] The accusation delayed the scheduled September 20 vote. After Ford's accusation, Kavanaugh indicated he would not withdraw. [36] Ford's allegations were followed by an accusation of sexual assault by Yale classmate Deborah Ramirez, [37] and a letter from Julie Swetnick accusing Kavanaugh of gang rape in high school. [38] Ford and Kavanaugh appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a hearing on September 27, and were questioned by Arizona sex crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell and members of the Senate. [39] [40] The Judiciary Committee voted to approve Kavanaugh on September 28 after Jeff Flake, considered to be a swing vote, declared his intent to vote in favor of the nomination with the provision that there would be a new FBI investigation into the allegations by Ford. [41] The investigation concluded on October 4. Two days later, Kavanaugh was confirmed by a 50–48 vote, and sworn in that same day.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on September 18, 2020. The following day, Trump stated that any successor of Ginsburg would "most likely" be a woman. [42] On September 25, 2020, it was announced that Trump intended to nominate Amy Coney Barrett to succeed Ruth Bader Ginsburg as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. On October 26, 2020, Barrett was confirmed by a vote of 52–48. [43] [44] She was sworn in the next day.
Below is a list of individuals which President Trump identified as his potential nominees for Supreme Court appointments. Most of them were revealed in two lists released by the Trump campaign in 2016. Others were added in a revised list released by the White House on November 17, 2017 [45] and a fourth list released on September 9, 2020. [46]
Following the nomination of Amul Thapar to the Sixth Circuit, it was reported that Trump might try to season some of the candidates on his list with federal appellate court experience prior to potential nomination to the Supreme Court. [47] Indeed, Trump later elevated a number of state court judges from his list to fill vacant positions on the federal Courts of Appeals: Joan Larsen (Sixth Circuit), David Stras (Eighth Circuit), Allison H. Eid (Tenth Circuit), Don Willett (Fifth Circuit), and Britt Grant (Eleventh Circuit). Conversely, two previous Trump appointees to the Courts of Appeals—Amy Coney Barrett (Seventh Circuit) and Kevin Newsom (Eleventh Circuit)—were later added to the list of potential Supreme Court candidates.
Despite speculation that Trump might consider other candidates for a possible second Supreme Court nomination, he said in May 2017 that he would make his next appointment from the same list he used to choose Gorsuch (the combined 21 names given on either of the two lists he released during the campaign), describing the list as "a big thing" for him and his supporters. [48] Trump added five further candidates to the list on November 17, 2017.
Note:
Names marked with a single asterisk (*) were included on the original short list of eleven potential candidates for the Scalia vacancy released by the Trump campaign on May 18, 2016.
Names marked with a double asterisk (**) were included on the additional short list of ten more potential candidates released on September 23, 2016.
Names marked with a dagger (†) were added to the revised short list of November 17, 2017.
Names marked with a double dagger (‡) were included on the additional short list of twenty more potential candidates released on September 9, 2020.
Unlike the 2016 campaign, Trump did not release a list of potential Supreme Court nominees during the 2024 campaign. [4] Names that have been suggested as likely nominees for Supreme Court seat in Trump's second term include a number of court of appeals judges, many of whom were appointed to their seats by Trump in his first term:
The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies (FedSoc) is an American conservative and libertarian legal organization that advocates for a textualist and originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., it has chapters at more than 200 law schools and features student, lawyer, and faculty divisions; the lawyers division comprises more than 70,000 practicing attorneys in ninety cities. Through speaking events, lectures, and other activities, it provides a forum for legal experts of opposing conservative views to interact with members of the legal profession, the judiciary, and the legal academy. It is one of the most influential legal organizations in the United States.
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest-ranking judicial body in the United States. Established by Article III of the Constitution, the detailed structure of the court was laid down by the 1st United States Congress in 1789. Congress specified the Court's original and appellate jurisdiction, created 13 judicial districts, and fixed the initial size of the Supreme Court. The number of justices on the Supreme Court changed six times before settling at the present total of nine in 1869. As of June 2022, a total of 116 justices have served on the Supreme Court since 1789. Justices have life tenure, and so they serve until they die in office, resign or retire, or are impeached and removed from office.
The demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States encompass the gender, ethnicity, and religious, geographic, and economic backgrounds of the 116 people who have been appointed and confirmed as justices to the Supreme Court. Some of these characteristics have been raised as an issue since the court was established in 1789. For its first 180 years, justices were almost always white male Protestants of Anglo or Northwestern European descent.
Neil McGill Gorsuch is an American jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President Donald Trump on January 31, 2017, and has served since April 10, 2017.
President Barack Obama made two successful appointments to the Supreme Court of the United States. The first was Judge Sonia Sotomayor to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice David H. Souter. Sotomayor was confirmed by the United States Senate on August 6, 2009, by a vote of 68–31. The second appointment was that of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to replace the retired John Paul Stevens. Kagan was confirmed by the Senate on August 5, 2010, by a vote of 63–37.
Brett Michael Kavanaugh is an American lawyer and jurist serving as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President Donald Trump on July 9, 2018, and has served since October 6, 2018. He was previously a U.S. circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 2006 to 2018.
Amul Roger Thapar is an American attorney and jurist serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He previously served as a U.S. district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky from 2008 to 2017 and as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky from 2006 to 2008. Thapar was President Donald Trump's first Court of Appeals appointment and Trump's second judicial appointment after Justice Neil Gorsuch. Thapar was discussed as a candidate for the Supreme Court of the United States.
Patricia Ann Millett is an American lawyer and jurist serving since 2013 as a U.S. circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She formerly headed the Supreme Court practice at the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. Millett also was a longtime former assistant to the United States Solicitor General and served as an occasional blogger for SCOTUSblog. At the time of her confirmation to the D.C. Circuit, she had argued 32 cases before the United States Supreme Court—once the record for a female lawyer. In February 2016, The New York Times identified her as a potential nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia.
The nomination and confirmation of justices to the Supreme Court of the United States involves several steps, the framework for which is set forth in the United States Constitution. Specifically, Article II, Section 2, Clause 2, provides that the president of the United States nominates a justice and that the United States Senate provides advice and consent before the person is formally appointed to the Court. It also empowers a president to temporarily, under certain circumstances, fill a Supreme Court vacancy by means of a recess appointment. The Constitution does not set any qualifications for service as a justice, thus the president may nominate any individual to serve on the Court.
U.S. President Barack Obama nominated over 400 individuals for federal judgeships during his presidency. Of these nominations, Congress confirmed 329 judgeships, 173 during the 111th & 112th Congresses and 156 during the 113th and 114th Congresses.
Allison Lynn Hartwell Eid is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. She previously served as an associate justice of the Colorado Supreme Court.
Joan Louise Larsen is an American attorney serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. She previously was an associate justice of the Michigan Supreme Court from 2015 to 2017.
On March 16, 2016, President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to succeed Antonin Scalia, who had died one month earlier. At the time of his nomination, Garland was the chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
On January 31, 2017, soon after taking office, President Donald Trump, a Republican, nominated Neil Gorsuch for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to succeed Antonin Scalia, who had died almost one year earlier. Then-president Barack Obama, a Democrat, nominated Merrick Garland to succeed Scalia on March 16, 2016, but the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate did not vote on the nomination. Majority leader Mitch McConnell declared that as the presidential election cycle had already commenced, it made the appointment of the next justice a political issue to be decided by voters. The Senate Judiciary Committee refused to consider the Garland nomination, thus keeping the vacancy open through the end of Obama's presidency on January 20, 2017.
Neomi Jehangir Rao is an American jurist and legal scholar serving since 2019 as a U.S. circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She was appointed by President Donald Trump, having served in the Trump Administration from 2017 to 2019 as Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. She was previously a professor of law at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School.
Britt Cagle Grant is an American attorney and judge who is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. She is a former Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia.
Donald Trump, President of the United States from 2017 to 2021, entered office with a significant number of judicial vacancies, including a Supreme Court vacancy due to the death of Antonin Scalia in February 2016. During the first eight months of his presidency, he nominated approximately 50 judges, a significantly higher number than any other recent president had made by that point in his presidency. By June 24, 2020, 200 of his Article III nominees had been confirmed by the United States Senate. According to multiple media outlets, Trump significantly impacted the composition of the Supreme Court and lower courts during his tenure.
Allison Blair Jones Rushing is an American attorney and jurist serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit since March 2019.
Michael Hun Park is an American lawyer who serves as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He was a law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito. Prior to becoming a judge, Park was a named partner at Consovoy McCarthy, a prominent law firm in the conservative legal movement. While at the firm, Park represented the state of Kansas in its efforts to cut Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood. Judge Park was appointed by President Trump and is a member of the Federalist Society.
On September 26, 2020, President Donald Trump announced the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the position of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to fill in the vacancy left by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. At the time of her nomination, Barrett was a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago, Illinois. The Senate received word from the president on September 29.
Having already picked three Supreme Court justices in his first term — who were critical in overturning abortion rights — Trump will have appointed a majority of the court if he lands two more.