Donald Trump’s historic opportunity to remake the courts, in 1 chartThe Washington Post, Jan 10, 2017, Chris Cillizza
Donald Trump's best day as a presidential candidate — prior to Nov. 8, of course — was May 18, 2016. That was the day Trump released the names of 11 people he would consider for the Supreme Court vacancy caused by the death of Antonin Scalia.
It was a very smart strategy. After all, conservatives had lots and lots of doubts about Trump — and some were even considering a challenge to him at the party's national convention. What he did by releasing those SCOTUS names was remind all of those conservatives of a very simple thing: If I'm president,
we could tilt the federal judiciary — from the Supreme Court on down — conservative for a generation or more. If Hillary Clinton is president she could do the same but in the liberal direction.
In his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, Trump declared that the Supreme Court “will be one of the most important issues decided by this election.” “The Supreme Court is what it’s all about,” Trump said in the third and final debate with Clinton, a sort of final reminder to conservatives of the stakes in the November election.
Unlike many things that Trump said during the course of the campaign, he wasn't exaggerating about the massive impact he can have on the federal judiciary. The chart below, which comes from the must-have quarterly PowerPoint slide decks of GOP lobbyist Bruce Mehlman, makes that point starkly.
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If you are looking for where Trump's presidency could matter most, it might not be in the legislative or even the executive branch. It could be the judiciary.
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