Why SCOTUS Pick Should Be Pryor

It has been announced that President Donald Trump is going to publicly announce his nominee for the opening in the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) on Monday evening.

The announcement is to take place during a live television broadcast at 8:00pm EST. This is a high profile time slot, and is entirely befitting the important nature of this vital nomination.

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest federal court in our nation. Established in 1789 by our original U.S. Constitution, the SCOTUS has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all courts in the land. 

Thus, SCOTUS is the final arbiter on nearly all court cases of vital national interest. Decisions are rendered by a majority vote of the Chief Justice and eight associate justices, all of whom serve a lifetime term.

That last part is vitally important. Once a justice is appointed to the SCOTUS, they serve until they either die, retire, resign, or are impeached and convicted by the U.S. Congress. Since no SCOTUS justice has ever been successfully impeached and convicted, appointees are almost certainly going to serve as long as they wish.

The only U.S. President to serve a full term in office and not have the opportunity to appoint a justice to the SCOTUS was Jimmy Carter. Now, less than two weeks into his first term in office, President Trump gets that opportunity.

Trump's pick is vitally important for a number of reasons, but primarily because the court vacancy that he is filling has been open for nearly a year. Last February 13, longtime noted SCOTUS justice Antonin Scalia passed away suddenly in his sleep at age 79.

SCOTUS WARS

Kudos to President George W. Bush for getting it right, or should that be 'Right', this time around with today's nomination of Samuel Alito for a SCOTUS seat to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. 

Alito is currently a sitting judge on the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court right here in Philadelphia. The 55-year old was appointed to that seat by the first President Bush, George H.W. back in 1990. 

Alito has been nicknamed "Scalia Lite" and "Scalito" due to a perceived similarity in judicial philosophy with conservative originalist Justice Antonin Scalia, for whom Alito once clerked. 

Those who know him say that his temperament is more like that of new SCOTUS Chief Justice John Roberts, and that his experience, intellect and charm will make it very difficult for the LibDems to defeat his nomination. 

Alito has more judicial experience than any Supreme Court nominee in 70 years, and if really an originalist as advertised, is exactly what the President's Republican conservative base has been looking for since previous nominee Harriet Miers removed her name from consideration. 

The nomination is absolutely certain to raise the ire, blood pressure and tempers of liberal democrats and their radical left-wing support organizations, and should trigger quite a battle in the process. 

But that philosophical battle is just what we on the right have been looking for all along. Let the SCOTUS WARS begin!

The Trouble With Harriet

President George W. Bush has nominated Harriet Miers, the official White House Counsel, to replace the retiring Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).

The nomination was made on Monday October 3rd, 2005, the same day that John Roberts officially took his seat as Bush’s first SCOTUS appointee, and also took the reigns as the new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, replacing the recently deceased William Rehnquist.

The fact that the President had the opportunity to appoint two new judges to the court at all during his term, let alone the rare opportunity to appoint two within a couple of months, should have been a cause for euphoric celebration on the Right, his and the Republican party’s base.

When Mr. Bush was elected, he promised his constituency that, if given an opportunity to make appointments to the court, his appointee(s) would be strict constructionists in the mold of current conservative SCOTUS stalwarts Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

In last year’s Presidential election, Bush defeated Democratic nominee John Kerry by receiving over 62 million votes, the highest vote total ever received by any American candidate for the office.

A large number of these voters, certainly the vast majority needed to secure Mr. Bush’s victory, knew when they cast their ballots that there was a strong likelihood of at least one, and likely multiple SCOTUS openings that would be filled by the man sitting in the Oval Office during the next term.

Mr. Bush’s pledge to appoint solid conservatives who could likely be counted on to help reverse the court’s decades-long liberal leanings was one of the principal reasons that he received many of those votes.

So now, flash forward to less than a year after the election. Justice O’Connor announces her retirement, and within a couple of months, aging Chief Justice Rehnquist passes away after a period of ill health.

Within a year, Mr. Bush has the opportunity to reward those 62 million voters with a pair of solid, proven conservative constructionists.

Who is John Roberts, and Why Should You Care?

Earlier this week, in a nationally televised announcement befitting the importance of the occasion, President Bush introduced his nominee to the United States Supreme Court. He named Washington, D.C. circuit court judge John Roberts to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

But just who is John Roberts, and why should you care? Why is this whole Supreme Court thing such a big deal?

Why are you going to be saturated with coverage of Roberts’ confirmation hearings, and why is the same thing going to happen as the President makes even more appointments in the future.

First, let’s get the biography out of the way. John Roberts is a 50-year old married father of two children, a native of Buffalo, New York who graduated magna cum laude from both Harvard College and Harvard Law School. While at Harvard he served as Managing Editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Out of law school in 1980, Roberts clerked for current Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist. He moved on to become an associate counsel to the Reagan administration, and then took on the position of deputy solicitor general under the first George Bush, arguing cases for the government position in front of the Supreme Court.