Trump to Announce Supreme Court Pick Later Tuesday
U.S. President Donald Trump is due to announce his Supreme Court nominee late Tuesday.
The nine-member court has had a vacant seat since the death last year of Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative stalwart on the court for 30 years.
Former President Barack Obama had nominated appellate court Judge Merrick Garland to fill the seat. But the Republican-controlled Senate refused to consider Garland’s nomination, saying it wanted the next president to make the nomination.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer predicted Tuesday President Trump’s nominee will please voters who cast presidential ballots based on the future composition of the high court. “I can ensure you that this individual will make those voters and every American very, very proud.” Spicer added that the president has taken the selection process very seriously. “He knows it will impact the courts of our country’s jurisprudence for generations to come,” Spicer said.
The court is split between four conservatives and four liberals, so Trump’s pick can restore a conservative majority.
Trump has been considering several conservative judges for the appointment.
Media reports say the front-runners include federal judges Neil Gorsuch and Thomas Hardiman.
The appointee will likely consider hotly-debated issues such as abortion, religious rights, transgender rights, the death penalty and gun control.
The 49-year-old Gorsuch currently serves on the10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in the Western city of Denver, Colorado. Gorsuch joined an opinion in 2013 saying that owners of private companies can object on religious grounds to an Affordable Care Act provision requiring employers to provide insurance coverage for birth control for women.
Hardiman has supported a broad interpretation of the constitutional right to bear arms. Hardiman, 51, has also backed the right of schools to restrict student speech.
Whoever is appointed, conservatives are hoping the Supreme Court will favor restrictions imposed on abortion by some Republican-governed states.
Since Scalia’s death, the high court has avoided some controversial issues, including a high profile case involving Gavin Grimm, a female-born transgender high school student who identifies as a male. The case is currently under consideration after he sued in 2015 to win the right to use the school’s boys’ bathroom in Virginia.
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