I hope you are right but I well remember some of the Republican Presidents picks that turned out to be just as liberal as the Dems picks. Remember Souter, Warren??Federal judicial appointments just went from bleak to super freak! - DoughtyOne
The quality of the justices confirmed is the product of the quality of the president nominating them and of the Senate confirming them. If either the President or the Senate is a zero, the confirmed justice will be likewise.Reagan nominated several justices. The first was O’Connor, a near-zero because he had promised a woman nominee. He did well - superbly, even - with Scalia. Because, Senate. His last pick was Kennedy, tho. Because, Senate.
P41 nominated Breyer, who was a cypher and proved to be a zero. Because, Senate. P41 also nominated Thomas - who very nearly was successfully borked. Because, Senate.
P43 nominated Roberts, something of a disappointment, and Miers - at which point conservatives rebelled, forcing a redo resulting in Alito. Because, Senate.
At present we have real hope, not only because of the present Senate, but because of the upcoming Senate after 2018. Of the 48 current Democrat Senators, 25 - over half! - are up for reelection in ’18. And ten of them are from states won by Trump. So it only remains for Trump to come through - and he ran on a list of (good, by all accounts) potential nominees. So a good Senate would, presumably, be able to get and approve a good nominee. As often as necessary.
I love the fact of the list; it was a risky move in the sense that each individual name on it constituted a potential target during the campaign. But the Democrats didn’t bite, and now they are stuck with a situation in which they coulda woulda shoulda attacked at least some of those nominees - but as it stands, response to any criticism of a nominee from that list can be, “Why didn’t you use that argument during the campaign??” Their perennial “out of the mainstream” claim is therefore off the table.
Nice comments...
One other factor that stands out to me, is the vetting of these men in the first place. A candidate or president generally asks his staff to vet people. That staff can really screw things up if the staff members are moderate themselves.
Hopefully Trump has some fail-safes in place like Sessions and others who will review and give him excellent feed-back.
We need the very best here. This is so vitally important.
Honestly, I think this was Reagan’s problem. His staff really let him down with two of those appointments.