President Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election may secure a conservative Supreme Court for decades to come.
When President-elect Trump first campaigned for president in 2016, he promised to put conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court who would overturn Roe v. Wade. In fact, it was his bold and brave promise that may have led to his narrow victory over Hillary Clinton in the first place.
The great conservative Justice Antonin Scalia – an ardent advocate for the Constitution and Originalism – had died on Feb. 13, 2016, injecting the future direction of the Supreme Court into the 2016 presidential election as one of its most salient issues. Justice Scalia was nominated to the Supreme Court by former President Ronald Reagan and became the court’s first Italian-American justice.
(Permit me a brief aside: If you’re looking for book recommendations on Justice Scalia, I highly recommend Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived).
Hours after Scalia’s death, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced the Republican-controlled Senate would not confirm any nomination made by then-President Barack Obama.
Nonetheless, President Obama nominated now-Attorney General Merrick Garland – then the Chief Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia – to fill the Supreme Court seat made vacant by Scalia’s death. The Senate did not confirm Judge Garland.
Amid the 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Trump released a list of 21 potential candidates he would choose from to fill Scalia’s vacancy.
In CNN’s exit polls of the 2016 election, among the 21% of voters who said Supreme Court appointments were the most important factor in determining their vote, 56% voted for Trump while just 41% voted for Clinton.
After President Trump took office, he nominated conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch on January 31, 2017, who was then confirmed by the Senate on April 10, 2017.
One year later, President Trump got a second chance to name a Supreme Court justice when moderate Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his plan to retire. President Trump nominated Justice Brett Kavanaugh as his replacement; he was confirmed October 6, 2018.
On September 18, 2020, in the heat of the 2020 presidential election, liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away from pancreatic cancer at the age of 87. This gave President Trump the rare opportunity to name a third justice to the Supreme Court. Eight days later, Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett, who was promptly confirmed by the Senate, establishing a solid 6-3 conservative majority on the high court.
President Biden replaced liberal Justice Stephen Breyer with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson at the end of the court’s 2022 session.
On June 24, 2022, in the landmark case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the high court overruled Roe v. Wade, ending 50 years of judicial policymaking on abortion. The court returned the issue back to the people and their elected representatives in the state and federal government.
Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the court’s majority, said, “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.”
“It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” the justice concluded.
In the intervening years since 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court has issued many other major rulings in addition to overturning Roe. The Supreme Court has:
Overturned race-based college admission standards in Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina in 2023.
Abolished Chevron deference, where courts must defer to agencies’ reasonable interpretation of statues, in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo in 2023.
Struck down the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate in National Federation of Independent Business v. Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 2022.
Struck down President Biden’s $430 billion student loan forgiveness plan in Biden v. Nebraska.
Upheld the Free Speech rights of website designer Lori Smith, who did not want to use her creative talents to make a website for a same-sex wedding, in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis.
The high court is considering many other important cases in its current term – including whether states can prohibit transgender medical interventions on minors.
In his second term, President Trump may get the opportunity replace one or more of the court’s current justices, including the two conservative stalwarts, Justice Clarence Thomas (aged 76) and Justice Samuel Alito (aged 74), or liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor (aged 70).
Justices Thomas and Alito are the court’s two most consistently conservative members. They are champions of Textualism and Originalism, free speech, religious liberty, marriage and the Second Amendment. Should either justice retire, they would leave an irreplaceable hole on the Supreme Court. Indeed, I have previously called Justice Thomas the single greatest living American.
And yet, either justice may decide to retire in the coming years to give President Trump the chance to replace them with a justice likely to be committed to Originalism.
Of course, any decision to retire remains with the justices alone. Leonard Leo, a judicial activist who played a significant role in shaping President Trump’s first-term judicial decisions, recently called out those pressuring the two justices to resign.
“No one other than Justices Thomas and Alito knows when or if they will retire, and talking about them like meat that has reached its expiration date is unwise, uninformed, and, frankly, just crass,” Leo said.
“Justices Thomas and Alito have given their lives to our country and our Constitution and should be treated with more dignity and respect than they are getting from some pundits.”
We at the Daily Citizen heartily agree. We thank both justices for their decades of service to our country, the Supreme Court, and for being fierce and eloquent defenders of the Constitution and the rule of law. We wish them many more long and happy years on the Supreme Court – our nation is better for their service, hard-work and defense of the Constitution.
Related articles and resources:
Donald Trump Elected 47th President of the United States
Many Americans Unaware of Key Facts About U.S. Constitution, Survey Finds
‘Roe v. Wade’ Overturned Because the Pro-Life Movement Never Stopped Fighting
Photo from Getty Images.
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