Trump anti-abortion supreme court pick 'not acceptable', says Collins

The Manchester Guardian ^ | July 1, 2018 | Tom McCarthy

[2ndDivisionVet]

As battle lines are drawn for the coming fight over Donald Trump’s second supreme court nominee, a senator who could help to decide the fate of the nomination warned on Sunday that a justice who would seek to reverse federal abortion rights protections “would not be acceptable”.

“A candidate for this important position who would overturn Roe v Wade would not be acceptable to me because that would indicate an activist agenda that I don’t want to see a judge have,” Republican senator Susan Collins told ABC’s This Week, referring to the 1973 court decision protecting abortion rights.

Trump, however, said on Sunday the abortion issue could be returned to the states, suggesting that a future court could overturn the federal abortion rights protections created by Roe.

“We’ll see what happens but it could very well happen with the states at some point,” Trump told Fox Business, repeating a view he expressed shortly after his election.

The president has said he will announce his pick to fill the seat of retiring justice Anthony Kennedy on 9 July. He was due to begin interviewing candidates from an existing 25-strong list this weekend, from his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey.

Collins said Trump had told her personally he would not ask potential nominees about their position on Roe – the president told reporters the same on Friday, on Air Force One. But the intensive conservative vetting of potential nominees is such that an anti-abortion disposition is practically ensured....

[2ndDivisionVet]

Joe Manchin, pick up the white courtesy phone.

[JusPasenThru]

Wow. I’m glad she’s not applying any kind of litmus test or anything.

[lurk]

Roe v Wade was not judicial activism? It is the icon of activism. The Supremes pulled that one out of their fannies.

[theoilpainter]

We wouldn’t be in this position had we not lost Alabama. Another reason Session’s appointment as AG was dumb.

[FrankR]

Wow...I wasn’t aware he’d already picked someone. Senator Collins is clairvoyant.

[DoodleBob]

Susan Collins: ‘Impressed’ With Neil Gorsuch, but Declines to Endorse Him. It would be premature to reveal her decision before the Supreme Court nominee is fully vetted by the Senate, she says.

Aaaaaand she voted for him. True nothing can be taken for granted but Trump is a wheeler-dealer. If he can get NK to deal, Collins is a cakewalk.

[Trump20162020]

She said the same thing before Gorsuch and voted for him, what’s with the panic? Whoever Trump picks is not going to say “yep, I’m for overturning Roe v. Wade tomorrow.”

[Reily]

Anyway she to posture for awhile.

[prophetic]

So these Republicans in the Senate are gonna become Prima Donnas so as to get press coverage and hope that Trump is gonna come courting to them?

[Reily]

Yep that’s about the size of it. They probably want something funded.

[Nifster]

One should not know what any nominees ideas on Roe v. Wade is

[Rome2000]

Trumps pick will just lie about his position on RVW.

No problem.

[TigersEye]

SCOTUS is not going to overturn Roe v. Wade. It doesn't need to. The Life At Conception Act would render Roe v. Wade an irrelevant arcane piece of U.S. legal history.

It is Congress + a president that could and should eliminate Roe v. Wade not the judiciary.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Maine is a Democrat State. I imagine she has to say certain things...

[Brilliant]

Exactly. And they knew it was going to cause a stir at the time. There was a great effort to make it unanimous because they were afraid of being called activists.

[Ann Archy]

STFU, you old CRONE!!

[xzins]

Collins has to say that. She wouldn’t survive in Maine if she didn’t. I’m not sure what she really believed

[OrangeHoof]

And here comes the biggest farce in jurisprudence. The nominee, no matter their true view on the issue, has to pretend they have no opinion about abortion even though Roe v Wade is 50 years old. They also can’t have a Pro-Life paper trail. Now, if they are a Democrat nominee, the more blood-thirsty they are in promoting baby-killing, the more qualified liberals believe they are.

Whatever Collins says, the nominee will profess no opinion and Collins will not look hard to find it. What was her vote on Gorsuch?

[Intolerant in NJ]

Hey - Trump’s just appointing someone who will interpret the law as intended under the Constitution - if Roe v. Wade was poorly decided, doesn’t actually conform to rigorous Constitutional standards and thus happens to be overturned - tough......

[Forty-Niner]

Any serious potential SC Justice will not answer questions on how they would vote on any issue likely to be before the Court. Collins knows that. She’s just posturing. Pathetic.