Posted on 07/01/2018 3:17:26 PM PDT by 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....
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Repukes have 51 Senate votes, with Pence having a tie-breaker vote. But I can’t see Collins and her buddy Murkowski voting for a self-acknowledged, pro-life SC judge. That drops the Rs’ vote to 49. Who knows if McCainiac is still living to cast a vote. He may be embalmed like Lenin by now. Even if still living and able to travel to D.C., he might vote thumbs down again to spite Trump. I’m not sure that even by peeling off shifty Manchin they can get to 50 for a tie.
The best tactic would be to have a pro-life stealth candidate who is silent on the issue during the confirmation process.
It’s like saying that someone spraypainting graffiti all over your house is fine but you washing it off is unacceptable activism.
Souter was a stealth candidate.
“Souter was a stealth candidate.”
He certainly appeared to be a zero. I’m not sure how much vetting was done by Bush, but obviously Souter was a terrible waste of a SC opportunity.
My point is intense vetting of the candidate’s constitutional views, as expressed in written opinions and privately held, by the Trump team to make sure where they stand in order to minimize unpleasant surprises like Souter and Sandra Day O’Connor. But steer away from it in public pronouncements and in Senate hearings.
Collins and Murkowski:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_affiliation_in_the_United_States_Senate#Catholic
Senator Susan Collins:
“I would not support a nominee who demonstrated hostility to Roe v Wade, because that would mean to me that their judicial philosophy would not include a respect for established decisions, for established law, and I believe that is a fundamental tenet of our judicial system.”
The Supremes pulled that one out of their fannies.
= = =
Good thing none were female.
There would have been pulling from elsewhere.
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