Trump taps 10 for federal bench
USA TODAY WASHINGTON President Donald Trump borrowed a page from George W. Bush’s playbook Monday by nominating 10 federal court judges en masse, almost 16 years to the day after Bush named 11 appeals court judges — including a Washington lawyer named John Roberts who soon became chief justice of the United States.
Trump’s action represents the opening salvo in what will be at least four years of battles with Senate Democrats over the federal judiciary, one that the president intends to pack with conservatives after President Barack Obama spent eight years tilting nearly every circuit court to the left.
It also elevates some rising legal stars who made it onto Trump’s original list of 21 potential Supreme Court justices last year, putting them closer to the high court at a time when Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court’s swing vote, is weighing retirement, and two liberal justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, are long past the average retirement age.
Two judges from that list were among the 10 nominees named Monday. Joan Larsen, 48, a Michigan Supreme Court justice, was nominated to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. David Stras, 42, a Minnesota Supreme Court justice, was nominated for the 8th Circuit. Previously, federal district court Judge Amul Thapar of Kentucky, who also made Trump’s high court list, was nominated to the 6th Circuit.
Others named to federal appeals courts Monday were Notre Dame law professor Amy Coney Barrett, Kentucky lawyer John Bush and former Alabama solicitor general Kevin Newsom. Those named to district courts were Dabney Friedrich, Terry Moorer, David Nye and Scott Palk, while Damien Schiff was named to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
Conservative legal activists applauded the new nominees, just as they had Trump’s selection in January of federal appeals court Judge Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court seat vacated a year earlier by Justice Antonin Scalia. Gorsuch, 49, was confirmed last month.
“When it comes to fulfilling his campaign promise to appoint strong, principled judges, Trump is knocking it out of the park,” said Carrie Severino, chief counsel of the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, which spent millions of dollars to help win Gorsuch’s confirmation.
Combined with Thapar’s earlier nomination, Trump has nominated six people to federal appeals courts, the traditional steppingstones to the Supreme Court. That’s one-fourth of the total number of vacancies on those regional courts. His five other nominations Monday were to lower courts.