I personally think Democrat Presidents have a success rate of around 90% in finding liberal judges whereas GOP presidents have a success rate of around 40-50% of finding conservative judges because of a difference in approaches. Democrat presidents look for ideological purists who have a proven record of liberal activism, like Clinton picking a man-hating, card-carrying ACLU feminazi lawyer. GOP presidents ignore their judge's personal background and just look for judges that the Federalist Society have the right "judicial philosophy" of being so-called "originalist". This "originalist" stuff has been a proven failure, its about as helpful as a politician running for office as a "fiscal conservative".
>> If all these judges Trump put in don’t matter, then a major feather in his presidential cap has gone missing. <<
Very few FReepers aside from myself questioned the narrative that Trump had "cemented a conservative majority for decades" and "kept his campaign pledge to give us Scalia-like nominees". They frequently cited this great "accomplishment" as fact despite there being no evidence his first two nominees were solid conservatives (and PLENTY of evidence suggesting otherwise). IMO, its come back to bite us in the butt, big time. I thought Barrett was his lone "good" appointment (and someone with a background of a solid conservative), but her first decision is a big disappointment. If she turns out to be a Roberts-type judge as well, we are really screwed.
I don't know about his lower court nominees, but if they are anywhere as "good" as his track record on SCOTUS nominees, then we will have gotten nowhere.
>> BTW, I did warn several times that we have all Catholics and Jews on the USSC but not any evangelical Protestants, despite the fact they are either a majority or close in this country. I think someone from Liberty Law School or Regent may have some different views. <<
Percentage-wise, there are about as many Catholics in this country as Evangelical protestants, around 25% of the population or so. Jews are around 2%. I think one of the reasons for the lopsided number of Jews and Catholics on SCOTUS is again the narrow range that Presidents pick from -- career federal judges that graduated from Harvard or Yale Law School are 95% of their picks, so the resulting "lists" have tons of Catholics and Jews.
If they were to be a little more open minded (for example, my pick for Scalia's seat would have been Thomas Rex Lee of the Utah Supreme Court, a graduate of Brigham Young University and who would have been the court's first Mormon justice), it would greatly increase the "diversity" of the court.
Gorsuch switched from Catholic to protestant and is now the court's lone protestant justice (the lone protestant justice before him was John Paul Stevens), so if anything the "mainline" protestants are much more likely to be liberal than the Catholic nominees.
In any case, Amy Coney Barrett may be a hardcore Catholic, but that does not necessarily mean solid conservative judge, either. Again, another reason why she would have not been my nominee or even ended up on my short list.
So far, the only proven "Scalia-like" SCOTUS judge we've gotten is Alito, a strongly conservative Roman Catholic, and his nickname was literally "Scalito" when he served on the lower court. Again, let's look at proven records, not the judges so-called 'judicial philosophy"
I generally agree. Certainly the jury is out on the Trump USSC picks. But I do think that the utter, 100% absence of an evangelical Protestant, not a Lutheran or an Episcopalean or a Presbyterian, is a major issue on the court, which should have at least 25% makeup of these type of people
I agree much of it is the Harvard/Yale pipeline and narrow searches. Given Mike Lee and Minion and their records, not sure someone from BYU would be much better. I’m thinking Liberty or Regent.