After the death of Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday from a prolonged battle with pancreatic cancer, her seat has fallen vacant, which gives President Donald Trump an opportunity to nominate her successor.
Trump on Saturday vowed to nominate a successor to Ginsburg “very soon”, saying that it would most likely be a ‘woman’. “I will be putting forth a nominee next week. I could say most likely it would be a woman. I think I can say that. If somebody were to ask me now I would say that a woman would be in the first place,” Trump told supporters at an election rally in North Carolina on Saturday.
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This will be Trump’s third nomination to the Supreme Court. Trump has said he is within his rights to fill the vacancy in the US Supreme Court. The President is counting on the Republican majority in the Senate to confirm his eventual choice.
The US President on September 9 published a list of potential candidates, of more than 20 nominees. The list is not definitive, as the two men Trump had named to the court, Neil Gorsuch in 2017 and Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, did not appear on an original list of candidates Trump released in 2016.
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Here are some names considered from Trump’s list of notable nominees :
Amy Coney Barret
Barret, 48, is currently a federal appeals court judge based in Chicago, and if elected, she would be the only conservative woman in the Supreme Court. The two other women justices, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, are both progressives appointed by former President Barack Obama.
The 48-year-old conservative was a law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative pillar of the Supreme Court until his death in February 2016. In law journals, she has professed opinions heavily influenced, according to her critics, by traditional religious values.
Barbara Lagoa
Barbara Lagoa, a Cuban-American from Miami, was the first Hispanic woman appointed to the Supreme Court of Florida.
Last week, the 52-year-old judge was part of the federal appeals court panel, which ruled that ex-felons in Florida cannot vote until they have paid any fees or fines owed to the state, decision critics say unconstitutionally disenfranchises people unable to pay.
Joan Larsen
Joan Larsen has developed a reputation as a solid conservative, opposed to the extension of gay rights and has taken a tough stance on the treatment of prisoners while sitting on the federal appeals court in Cincinnati, Ohio.
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She has also clerked for Justice Scalia and taught law at the University of Michigan before her nomination to that state’s supreme court.
Republican Senators
Republican senators Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, and Josh Hawley are also on Trump’s list of candidates. However, if he decides to nominate one of them the choice would be seen as more political than choosing a sitting judge.