President Trump to announce new Supreme Court justice
US President Donald Trump is expected to announce a Supreme Court nominee today to replace the late justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Shortly after Ginsburg’s death on September 18, Trump announced that he would reject Democratic Party calls to let the winner of the November 3 presidential election choose a candidate for the Court’s next associate justice. Trump is expected to fill the vacancy with one of two conservative Appeals Court contenders: Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the Seventh Circuit or Judge Barbara Lagoa of the Eleventh.
A partisan battle is likely to ensue in the Senate, the body charged with confirming the president’s nomination. While the Republican majority appears to have enough votes to procedurally move ahead with a vote on Trump’s pick, Democrats have a number of tactics to block or delay a vote, including threatening to increase the number of justices on the nine-member court after the November election or commencing new impeachment proceedings against Trump.
In the likely case that a Trump nominee is confirmed, the Supreme Court’s composition will result in a conservative supermajority, ushering in a new era of jurisprudence that could have a wide-ranging impact on social and constitutional issues, ranging from abortion and freedom of religion to corporate governance and environmental protection.
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