Trump eyes candidates to replace Justice Kennedy
Heritage Foundation senior fellow Hans von Spakovsky weighs in on who could replace the retiring judge.
One of the most consequential decisions of President Trump’s term is coming July 9, when the president says he will announce his nominee to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court. The president has the chance to add to his already stellar record when it comes to appointing judges.
In recent decades, the Supreme Court has ruled on some of the most important issues facing our nation, including abortion, the definition of the family, and religious freedom. On too many occasions, a majority of the justices have chosen a regrettable path.
Although the framers of the Constitution viewed the judiciary as “the least dangerous branch” of government, in more recent times it has become the most visible and volatile, undermining our liberties by acting as a group of super legislators. That is why this pick now by President Trump matters so deeply.
Roe v. Wade is at the center of the storm surrounding judicial nominations, and for good reason. This tragic decision in 1973 took the issue of abortion away from citizens and their state legislatures, finding the right to end the lives of preborn babies in mysterious constitutional “emanations and penumbras.”
This single decision resulted in more than 55 million lives lost. The court made up a right to abortion in the Constitution that didn’t exist, and the nation has paid the price ever since. The decision hurts women and destroys children.
The same judicial activism that gave us the Roe v. Wade ruling has repeated itself in many other cases in which courts rewrite the Constitution to fit their own desired policy goals without remorse.
We’re weary of the legislator-judges who have created a partisan free-for-all that erupts whenever it comes time to appoint a new justice.
This vacancy on the court created by the Kennedy retirement represents an opportunity to return to the vision upon which the framers of the Constitution created the judiciary in the first place.
The hundreds of thousands of moms and dads who contact Focus on the Family – citizens who value life, liberty, and the freedom to engage in self-government – want to see a nominee who stays in his or her judicial lane and interprets the Constitution according to its text and original understanding.
We want a justice who knows how to judge rightly.
President Trump has a number of good candidates to choose from, and it’s not too much to hope that there’s a future Antonin Scalia in that mix. For the good of our country, I pray that is the case.
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