WHEN Antonin Scalia, the intellectual anchor of the Supreme Court’s conservative wing, died in February, Senate Republicans rushed to declare, in defiance of centuries of precedent, that Barack Obama’s successor should choose his replacement. The risky and ungentlemanly gambit—stonewalling Merrick Garland, a moderate, highly respected appeals-court judge nominated by Mr Obama on March 16th—bordered on constitutional malfeasance. But politically it has paid off. Donald Trump, America’s president-elect, will have the opportunity to preserve and perhaps even expand the conservative majority that has reigned at the Supreme Court for five decades.
On the campaign trail, under pressure to display conservative bona fides, Mr Trump shared more about his plans for the nation’s highest court than any presidential candidate has ever divulged: not one list of potential nominees, but two, totalling 21 people, who, he says, deserve a shot at one of the court’s nine seats.
The first list, released in May, comprised 11 white judges: six sitting on federal circuit courts and five on state supreme courts. In keeping with his promise to...Continue reading
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