Posted on 06/13/2023 8:45:55 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Hugh Hewitt’s interview with Ron DeSantis includes this exchange about the Supreme Court:
HH: Now in terms of the judges that you will bring to bear on this, former President Trump hit three home runs with his Supreme Court appointments. Are you going to make the same kind of pledge to the Republicans as you go around the country that your judges will be like the Trump judges?
RD: Well, actually, I would say we’ll do better than that. I mean, I respect the three appointees he did, but none of those three are at the same level of Justices Thomas and Justice Alito. I think they are the gold standard, and so my justices will be along the lines of a Sam Alito and a Clarence Thomas. And in Florida, I inherited a very liberal state supreme court, maybe the most liberal in the country, very activist. But I was able to replace three of the four liberals my first month in office with conservative justices. I’ve since been able to make a number of appointments since then. So we now have the most conservative state supreme court in the country. And so I think we have a really good track record on doing that. And in fact, two of my supreme court picks in my first year of office were elevated to the 11th Circuit by President Donald Trump.
(Emphasis added)
If anything, DeSantis’ answer is too respectful to Trump’s appointees. Neil Gorsuch, probably the best of the three, reached the bizarre conclusion that Congress, in 1964, banned employment discrimination against gays, lesbians, and transgendered individuals. He reached the equally bizarre conclusion that much of Eastern Oklahoma belongs to Indian tribes for purposes of the Major Crimes Act.
Brett Kavanaugh, the worst of the three, is very far from a “home run.” I’m not sure he’s even an extra-base hit.
Kavanaugh does not vote consistently with Alito and Thomas in the tough cases. Instead, he’s apt to join the three liberal Justices.
He did so recently in two major cases. In the Alabama redistricting case, he joined the three libs and the Chief Justice to reject a plan that didn’t carve out a “safe” congressional district for a black to win. George Will attacks the decision here.
And in a recent environmental law case challenging the EPA’s regulatory authority, he broke with all five Republican-appointed Justices to disagree with their standard for limiting the scope of the Clean Water Act’s definition of wetlands. Here’s Hugh Hewitt on the subject.
When Trump ran for president in 2016, he criticized George W. Bush for appointing John Roberts to the court, and Ted Cruz for backing Roberts. It’s true that, in his present incarnation, Roberts is a disappointment to conservatives. But Roberts was a solidly conservative Justice for his first six years on the bench, and remained pretty reliable for several more years after his Obamacare ruling in 2012.
Kavanaugh has been on the Court for less than five years. He’s already voting as a center-right jurist, not a conservative.
There’s little doubt that if Trump were in DeSantis’ position and DeSantis in Trump’s, Trump would be ripping DeSantis over the Kavanaugh nomination. But I’m fine with the way DeSantis is playing this.
There’s nothing much to be gained by attacking Kavanaugh, who still garners sympathy from Republicans due to the vicious last-minute attacks Senate Democrats launched against him during the confirmation process. And Kavanaugh did vote with the four solid conservative Justices in the abortion case. (Let’s see what he does in the term-defining Harvard race-based preferences case.)
Thus, DeSantis’ answer to Hewitt is a good one. Rather than attacking one or more Trump appointee, it’s enough to inform voters that the three don’t measure up to “gold standard” Justices Thomas and Alito, and to tout the strong conservatism of the Florida Supreme Court justices he has appointed.
We have a lot of Freepers here who don’t give their comments much thought..
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That’s pretty much standard across the entire human element. jmo
The kill ratio is 10-1 in Russia's favor.
So, you’re one of the few here that likes McConnell?
But, if a Republican establishment type had won the Presidency instead of Trump, he or she would never have named enough judges to SCOTUS to overturn Roe.
They are as good as you can possibly get. Trump was the first GOP President not to nominate a total dud. These guys vote more than 90$ the right way.
Most of the attacks on them here are for cases they did not take. These are complex, almost always due to “ripeness” and/or the fact that a specific case brought before them is really weak in major ways and/or doesn’t address the key underlying Constitutional law. This was the case with abortion. They booted the weak TX case in favor of a stronger MS case. They have overwhelmingly reduced the power of the Deep State in multiple rulings. They have reaffirmed private gun ownership.
The major area where people are upset were in the election fraud cases. There are two things here. First, any (ALL) courts hesitate to get involved in any election issues. The USSC in 2000 HATED having to get involved in Bush v. Gore. But more important, ANY election case has to involved a remedy that the court can clearly delineate that won’t open up 20 other cases. Say there is a fraud case in AZ: a ruling there would have to be comprehensive enough to anticipate related Constitutional challenges in 49 other states. Thus, if they don’t get a “clean” case that allows them to do this, they won’t take it.
I know most Freepers don’t like that answer, but that is absolutely the legal reasoning. In the gun case, since Heller had already refined the law, the Court could make a clear ruling. In Dobbs, it could do two things quickly and easily: overturn Roe/Casey, and send it back to the states. Note that the Court did NOT rule on when life begins.
I think Gorsuch was 100% correct when he said in one case the Court turned down, “It isn’t our job to write the laws” or words to that effect.
If Ron DeSantis is the nominee, I'll vote for him despite the fact that I'm concerned he needs more seasoning.
Very good summary, thank you.
Trump is fortunate he got to pick 3, and I’d say they have been quite good. I thank God he got that chance.
Unlike many, I don’t hate McConnell. You deal with what you have. Tell KY voters if you’re so upset about him.
I’m not overly pleased about any RINOs (real or imaginary), but you do the best you can and work WITH them to get your way AMAP. In my native land, I’m excited to have a RINO rather than outright Dem, who think they can run roughshod over everything because were used to liberalism. People pick on Larry Hogan and Rob Ehrlich but they were the first R govs in 4 decades and they did many things that were conservative.
Got examples?
The “Im Trump, but better”campaigning of Desantis is the stupidest campaign I’ve ever seen.
You cannot work with RINOs.
We need to pray for no accidents for old Clarence.
No kidding.
Kavanaugh is better than Kennedy.
Politics is the art of the possible.
Only an evil idiot demands absolute ideological adherence or complete loyalty.
The point is that the condemnation of some fatass who has probably never run for office, held an office, or managed a campaign means exactly diddly squat.
People who haven’t been actually involved in elections and politicking are like sports fans screaming about blown calls or bad coaches- good for a laugh.
I have more respect for someone who gets off their ass, runs a campaign, and wins election to an office -be it dogcatcher or congress person - than any idiot who thinks they’ve done their duty by merely voting.
Even if I utterly disagree with the former and completely agree with the latter.
For every person bitching about AOC, for example, how many have done phone banking, walked precincts, organized vanpools to take people to the polls? Those are the only people who deserve respect, no matter how ‘impure’ some of their views.
Not just judges.
When it comes to judges, though, you’re never going to get somebody who agrees with you 100% of the time.
If they do, they aren’t really judges, since the law won’t always coincide with what one wants.
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