The promise of conservative courts was one of the major factors that convinced wary Republicans to look past Donald Trump’s obvious flaws and pull the lever for him in 2016. It was supposed to similarly animate the base in 2020. While Trump has confirmed more than 200 federal judges, surprising liberal victories in Supreme Court decisions this term have rankled conservatives, who feel “betrayed” by what was meant to be a right-wing bench, and led to mounting GOP scrutiny of the list Trump has touted of potential future appointees.
Trump last month said it was “more important than ever” to appoint conservative judges, and promoted a list of potential Supreme Court picks meant to assure Republicans that he’d further swing the nation’s highest court to the right during a second term, which is likely to include another vacancy. But after Republican-appointees sided with the majority on several recent decisions, including on LGBTQ rights, some on the right are pressing for the White House to tighten its vetting process. “The main thing that needs to happen is to cut the list way down by removing anyone who has not been proven to be a rock-ribbed conservative,” a Republican close to the White House told Politico Monday. “The whole purpose of the list is to give hardline conservatives a guarantee that we will not be betrayed again.”
“If the president wants to keep social conservatives, he needs to put out a much shorter list of the people who would actually receive real consideration for a vacancy in the next year,” the Republican added.
While some on the right are fine with the length of Trump’s list or believe he should expand it, there appears to be a growing sentiment that some of the names he’s included do not have long enough track records to have proven their conservative bona fides. “I don’t love the idea of just doing over what we have been doing in the past,” Republican Senator Josh Hawley, who said Sunday that he would only approve of Supreme Court nominees who believe Roe v. Wade was “wrongly decided,” told Politico last month. “When it comes to this whole process, we have to ask ourselves, is this vetting process, is this really working?”
Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch in June sided with the court’s liberals in affirming that LGBTQ Americans are protected by workplace anti-discrimination laws, a decision that sparked conservative outcry. “[Antonin Scalia] would be disappointed that his successor has bungled textualism so badly,” Carrie Severino of the right-wing Judicial Network wrote at the time, referring to the late conservative Gorsuch replaced on the court in 2017. “This was not judging, this was legislating.” George W. Bush appointee John Roberts has angered conservatives even more this summer, leading the court to several unexpected rulings in which he’s sided with liberal justices on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that Trump had sought to end; the Bostock case protecting LGBTQ workplace rights; and a high-profile case that will allow prosecutors, and perhaps eventually Congress, to get a look at Trump’s elusive tax and financial records. (Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh sided with the majority in the latter, as well.) “Chief Justice Roberts does it again,” Trump ally Jim Jordan tweeted at the time. “First, Obamacare. Now, DACA. What’s next? Our second amendment gun rights?”
“These horrible & politically charged decisions coming out of the Supreme Court are shotgun blasts into the face of people that are proud to call themselves Republicans or Conservatives,” Trump tweeted last month. “We need more Justices or we will lose our 2nd. Amendment & everything else. Vote Trump 2020!”