Guest Post by Pat Buchanan
America’s court wars, in which the coming battle over Barrett’s nomination may prove decisive, go back half a century.
By nominating Federal Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Donald Trump kept his word, and more than that.
Should she be confirmed, he will have made history.
Even his enemies would have to concede that Trump triumphed where his Republican predecessors — even Ronald Reagan, who filled three court vacancies — fell short. Trump’s achievement — victory in the Supreme Court wars that have lasted for half a century — is a triumph that will affect the nation and the law for years, perhaps decades.
Trump’s remaking of the Supreme Court for constitutionalism may well be the crown jewel of his presidency.
Consider. If Judge Barrett becomes Justice Barrett, she will join Justices Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to create a constitutionalist core of five justices, a controlling majority.
On the other side would sit the three liberals: 82-year-old Stephen Breyer and Barack Obama appointees Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.
If Chief Justice John Roberts envisioned a Roberts Court where he would be the swing vote for 4-4 deadlocks, deciding every such case himself, his dream could be about to vanish.
If Barrett is confirmed, the new court becomes “The Five,” with its youngest, newest and most charismatic member, a 48-year-old protege of Justice Antonin Scalia, its brightest and rising star.
Consider the credentials of the jurist Trump just named.
Barrett was summa cum laude at Notre Dame Law School, graduating first in her class. She clerked for Scalia, taught law at South Bend for 15 years and has served for three years on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.
She is a non-Ivy League, Middle American and a devout Catholic and mother of seven, including a special needs child and two adopted children from Haiti. Almost universally, former classmates and colleagues, liberals among them, praise her temperament, brilliance and scholarship.
America’s court wars, in which the coming battle over Barrett’s nomination may prove decisive, go back half a century.
It was begun in June 1968, as Richard Nixon, victorious in his party’s primaries, was moving inexorably to the GOP nomination in Miami Beach and very possibly on to the presidency of the United States.
Chief Justice Earl Warren, an old adversary of Nixon’s from California days, was not happy with this. A report in the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Warren “is said to feel that Richard Nixon — regarded as the GOP’s likely presidential nominee — would be bound to appoint a new Chief Justice pledged to overturn recent court decisions guaranteeing constitutional rights of criminals.”
Nixon sent the clipping to me with a note: “Buchanan: Why doesn’t (Strom) Thurmond send this to Southern papers — opinion leaders.”
The Inquirer article proved to be on point. In collusion with Chief Justice Warren, President Lyndon Johnson had hatched a plot.
Warren would announce his resignation as chief justice and would make acceptance contingent upon Johnson’s nominee to succeed him being confirmed. And that nominee would be Justice Abe Fortas, a court ally of Warren and longtime crony of LBJ. All three were in on it.
When Fortas was confirmed, his vacant seat as associate justice would then be filled by Federal Judge Homer Thornberry, also an ally of Johnson’s going back to his Texas days.
Thus would Nixon be preempted, the liberalism of the high court guaranteed, and the Warren Court succeeded for another decade by the Fortas Court.
When LBJ named Fortas, Nixon went silent. But GOP Senators Robert Griffin, John Tower and Howard Baker moved to block Fortas’ ascent. They used an argument familiar to us today. The new president chosen in November, not the president retiring in January, should choose Warren’s replacement as chief justice.
The attack from Senate Republicans soon zeroed in on Fortas’ social liberalism on pornography as manifest in his having voted alone on the court to approve for public viewing films depicting acts of homosexual sex.
Fortas not only failed to win the support of the two-thirds of the Senate he needed to overcome a Republican filibuster, he also failed to win a simple majority, receiving only 45 votes for confirmation. On Oct. 1, 1968, Fortas asked Johnson to withdraw his nomination, and in the spring of 1969, he was forced to resign from the court in a financial scandal.
Warren would have to swear in Nixon as the nation’s 37th president on Jan. 20, 1969, and then watch Nixon replace him as chief justice with Judge Warren Burger in the spring of that same year.
Came then Nixon’s losing battles to put Southern judges Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell on the court, Reagan’s failure to elevate Bob Bork, and the brutal but failed assaults on Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh.
Now comes Amy Coney Barrett’s turn.
If Senate Republicans stay united, then they can realize a victory that generations of their GOP predecessors had hoped to see.
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Pat has purposely misinformed and misdirected more people than probably anyone else on the subject of the Supreme Court.
I really can’t stand professional disinformation artists.
https://tinyurl.com/ya9hmx6w
Yeah sure Pat, future generations are going to lionize this President and his accomplishments. People will be looking back wistfully at the Drumpf years, no doubt.
Mormontard Romney troll.
I can’t stand Noder Dame, but at least she isn’t an ivy leaguer. Doesn’t mean she will do right by America. But again, at least she’s not an ivy leaguer.
She hails from Louisiana and got her undergraduate degree in Memphrica, so quite possibly has some good southern roots. I have high hopes for ACB, but still squeamish she may turn into another Sandra Day O’Connor, joining Roberts to be a double swing vote.
That’s it, stack the court in your favor just before the election, that way you throw the election to the court to decide the winner. 2000 elections all over again. We’re going to get Bushwacked again.
Nonsense.
The dems have already told us they are going to fight this in the courts, so why not fulfill your Constitutional Duty to fill the seat?
Ron, does stupid run in your family? Did Ruth Ginsberg die on purpose, just so Trump could stack the courts to ensure his election? If you thought Gore was a viable candidate then, well…I could repeat myself.
ginsberg expired because the formaldahyde stopped working
More than likely, Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer will be replaced over the next 4 years. A Harris/Biden win or dem take over of the Senate could bring us back to 4-4 with Roberts the swing man. A Trump win coupled with a rep senate would give the court a 6-2-1 majority for the next 2 generations.
Perhaps you’ve read one too many Pat Buchanan columns.
I like old-school 1980s style Pat better.
Notice that with all this intrigue and political skullduggery not a word on fidelity to the constitution.
Didn’t I just read Barrett just upheld shutting down the entire economy because of a flu season? Just where in the constitution is the flu clause?
yes, you sure did. If you happen to comb through here record you can see case after case of siding with the corporatocracy and governments over individual liberties. The only part of the Constitution she gives a shit about is the 22nd amendment. The rest of it is pretty loosy goosy as she will vote whatever way the wind is blowing. There is a reason the deep statists and neocons are all pro Barrett. The down voters are the general public, too lazy and too ignorant to realize that anything you need to know about this woman can be read in the cases she has heard and opinions she has written.
Thank you. I find it hilarious that people think the corporate/bankster class would allow anyone other than an approved stooge to be considered, much less elevated to the court.
I just don’t get all the hate. I was going to say she is everything but a minority. But she kind of is.
Sadly it seems that once they put on the robe they start to become liberal. Look at Roberts and Gorsuch and how they’ve ruled. Only true conservative in the SC is Clarence Thomas and he’s wanting to retire. The true tragedy is that the Supreme Court was never designed to decide or create law, and that it has become the final decision maker for idiotic congressional ‘laws’ is beyond tragic, especially if you realize that the only real reason the court exists is to enforce the Constitution, not public opinion.
Until something is done to get the power to legislate away from SCOTUS, this dog and pony shitshow will continue with or without ACB.
Yep we will have to hang them all
Congress secretly loves having a Supreme Court which can take the tougher issues out of their hands, diminishing their responsibility, helping perpetuate the DC system of self-aggrandizement.
An eventual military coup is more likely than Congress ever asserting its prerogative of removing a Supreme Court justice.
Pat obviously has missed the disappointments of Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Roberts. Trans rights? Planned Parenthood funding? Obamacare? There’s absolutely no reason to think Barrett will be any different, in fact it’s safe to assume that anyone even allowed to be nominated is another liberal zionist puppet, just like the politicians we’re allowed to vote for.
This is worth repeating a 3rd time.
When Obummer left we allegedly had a 4-4 tie. Two Arch Conservative appointments later the Liberals have a 5-4 lead. How many more of these Constitutionalist appointments can we stand.
Sorry Pat, but Justice Amy is a Pro-Abortion moderate who should not be onvthe Court. Once again, Conservatives and Pro-Life People are being stabbed in the back by Republicans!!! SMH. When will we ever learn?!