Two conservative federal judges, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, are the leading contenders to replace retiring justice Anthony Kennedy. Kavanaugh and Barrett are on the top of President Donald Trump's list as he goes into interviews with potential Kennedy replacements Monday, CBS News reports. Both judges appear on Trump's list of 25 judges who have been Supreme Court contenders since the appointment of Justice Neil Gorsuch to replace Antonin Scalia last year. The two also appear on the shorter list of top picks widely circulated following Kennedy’s retirement announcement, alongside Judges Thomas Hardiman, Raymond Kethledge, and Amul Thapar. Kavanaugh, 53, is a judge on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. He first rose to national attention for his work on the Starr Report, as well as the investigation into the death of former Clinton legal counsel Vince Foster. A former Kennedy clerk, Kavanaugh likely curried favor with the Trump administration for his recent opinion finding that the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was unconstitutional, granting Trump the ability to fire its head at his discretion. Barrett, 46, was a law professor at her alma mater Notre Dame before her appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Her nomination as Kennedy's replacement has already earned the public endorsement of several prominent conservatives. But her last confirmation hearing proved controversial, as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) attacked Barett's Catholic faith, insinuating that, "the dogma lives loudly within [her]." Barrett and Kavanaugh's convictions on one issue are likely to be of particular import to their confirmation: abortion. Commentators have explicitly framed Trump's pick in terms of whether or not a fifth conservative justice would constitute a majority to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and Republican senator Susan Collins (Maine), one of the few GOP members of Congress to lean pro-abortion, has said she will not back a candidate who would overturn the cases. It's unclear where either judge Barrett or Kavanaugh come down on abortion's constitutionality. Kavanaugh voted against a D.C. circuit which granted access to abortion to a teenage illegal immigrant; Barrett has not much commented on the issue, but her public comments suggest a suspicion of Roe's legal reasoning. Kennedy has announced that he will retire on July 31, and Trump has said he intends to have a nominee several weeks prior, with July 9 as the current deadline.<doc-sep>President Trump is expected to move quickly to nominate a replacement for retiring Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s soon-to-be-vacant Supreme Court seat, and two leading candidates are veteran Washington, D.C., appellate Judge Brett Kavanaugh and Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a former Notre Dame law professor and recent Trump appointee to the 7th Circuit in Chicago. They emerged from a list of more than two dozen potential nominees put together by the conservative Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation. The list was Trump’s idea and it has proven effective, said Leonard Leo, a Federalist Society official who is advising the White House. It told Republican voters that he was serious about appointing only reliable conservatives to the high court, he said. Unlike in decades past, when presidents and their top lawyers scrambled to find a qualified nominee when a vacancy suddenly arose, the Federalist Society list is the result of careful screening. A team of lawyers read and analyzed everything written or said by the candidates. Advertisement Their unofficial motto is “No more Souters,” a reference to now-retired Justice David H. Souter, who was nominated by President George H.W. Bush in 1990. Souter was a little-known judge from New Hampshire, but the White House team assured Republicans he was a conservative. They were wrong. Souter was careful and cautious as a judge and devoted to precedent. But his leanings were moderate to liberal. In 1992, Souter along with Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Sandra Day O’Connor joined to uphold the right to abortion announced two decades earlier in Roe vs. Wade. Conservatives are determined never to make the same mistake again. Kavanaugh, 53, grew up in Washington and is the favorite of many conservative lawyers here. He went to Yale Law School and clerked at the Supreme Court for Kennedy alongside Neil M. Gorsuch, who joined the court last year as Trump’s first appointment. Kavanaugh was a top deputy to independent counsel Kenneth Starr in the long investigation of President Clinton, and he drafted the Starr Report that led to Clinton’s impeachment. He also joined the legal team that represented George W. Bush in the fight over the recount in the 2000 presidential election. Kavanaugh worked in the White House counsel’s office for Bush and later served as his staff secretary. In 2003, Bush nominated him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, but Democrats initially blocked his confirmation. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) called him a “very bright legal foot soldier” who has been in the middle of every partisan legal battle. But Kavanaugh finally won confirmation in 2006. Since then, Kavanaugh has written hundreds of opinions, and he is known for always staking out a conservative position. “He is much more conservative in his approach to law than Justice Kennedy,” said Justin Walker, a University of Louisville law professor who clerked for Kavanaugh at the appeals court and Kennedy at the Supreme Court. “There is no guesswork with Judge Kavanaugh. He is extremely predictable.” Advertisement Walker cited, as an example, Kavanaugh’s support for the right to own a semiautomatic rifle under the 2nd Amendment. In 2008, the Supreme Court struck down a District of Columbia ordinance that prohibited residents from having a handgun at home. The same plaintiff later claimed the right to possess a semiautomatic weapon, but lost by a 2-1 vote in the D.C. Circuit, Walker noted. Kavanaugh wrote a lengthy dissent arguing that the 2nd Amendment included the right to have such a weapon. The Supreme Court, however, has rejected appeals raising that issue, which has the effect of upholding laws and ordinances that banned such assault weapons. Last fall, Kavanaugh was involved in a quick-moving dispute over whether a migrant teenager in Texas could be released from immigration custody to obtain an abortion. A federal judge cleared the way, but Kavanaugh wrote a 2-1 decision siding with Trump administration lawyers and blocking the abortion for up to 10 more days. The full appeals court intervened and overturned his ruling. In dissent, he faulted his more liberal colleagues as wrongly creating a “new right for unlawful immigrant minors in U.S. government detention to obtain abortion on demand.” Like many judges, he has avoided any direct comments in his legal opinions about Roe vs. Wade, the landmark abortion ruling that will loom large over upcoming confirmation hearings. Advertisement In contrast to Kavanaugh, Barrett, 46, is a newcomer with a sparse record as a judge. She is a product of the University of Notre Dame and South Bend, Ind. She went law school at Notre Dame and spent a few years in Washington as a law clerk for D.C. Circuit Judge Laurence Silberman and Justice Antonin Scalia. She returned in 2002 to teach law at Notre Dame. Barrett was narrowly confirmed by the Senate in November, and now commutes a few days a week from South Bend to downtown Chicago. She has, however, written and spoken frequently about the importance of her Catholic faith and in her belief that life begins at conception. In a 2003 scholarly article, she suggested Roe vs. Wade was an “erroneous decision.” During her Senate hearing, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said she had read Barrett’s writings, adding that the “dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s a concern.” Advertisement That comment triggered a sharp backlash from Barrett’s defenders and others, who said the nominee was being criticized for her faith. But if Barrett is the nominee, Democrats and liberal activists are certain to focus on her views about abortion and the role they might play if the court is asked to overturn Roe. The latest from Washington » More stories from David G. Savage » Advertisement david.savage@latimes.com Twitter: DavidGSavage<doc-sep>President Trump has said he will announce his nominee for Supreme Court justice on Monday, July 9. His pick, if confirmed, would replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, a key swing vote on the court who will be retiring. Court watchers are specifically checking out contenders' positions on abortion rights, and their stances could change reproductive rights in a massive way. The two frontrunners for the nomination are Brett Kavanaugh, a judge on the D.C. Circuit Court, and Amy Coney Barrett, a relatively new judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, reports CBS News. Kavanaugh is seen as having more support from the establishment, while Barrett appeals to Trump's grassroots base. Kavanaugh has said in the past he considered Roe v. Wade to be settled law, but Barrett's position isn't as clear. How Barrett Has Stood on Faith and Abortion Barrett has only been on the circuit court bench for less than a year, so experts mainly have her academic scholarship to pore over, rather than her judicial record. The judge, who is Catholic, has had a history of conservative stances on reproductive rights, as seen in her writing. SCOTUSblog notes that her first law review article discussed the Catholic Church's lessons about the death penalty, writing that Catholic judges should sometimes recuse themselves in those cases. The article, which she cowrote with law professor John Garvey, called prohibitions on abortion and euthanasia "absolute" because they "take away innocent life." This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. WATCH: Judge Amy Coney Barrett, one of President Trump's candidates for the Supreme Court, has expressed a "certain hostility" toward Roe v. Wade. pic.twitter.com/e3dRKiSQA9 — MSNBC (@MSNBC) July 4, 2018 The former Notre Dame law professor's Catholic faith was an issue during her confirmation hearings for the circuit court. Democrats, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, grilled her about how her faith impacts her judging. “[When] you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you," Feinstein told her. "And that’s of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for years in this country.” Barrett, who once clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia, insisted that her personal opinions would have "no bearing" on her decisions as a judge. The debate didn't affect her confirmation, and Politico notes some conservatives say the testy exchange actually propelled her further up the list for Supreme Court consideration. Plus, Barrett is a woman, a mother of seven, in her mid-40s, and a person of faith, all aspects that may appeal to Trump on an optics level, CNN adds. Barrett herself said during her confirmation hearing, "Roe has been affirmed many times and survived many challenges in the court. And it's more than 40 years old and it's clearly binding on all courts of appeals." Reuters notes that she has previously said she personally believes life begins at conception, but also has said she doubted Roe v. Wade would be overturned. Why Roe v. Wade Is Important Right Now The newest justice could make a decision on abortion rights fairly quickly, Politico reports, because abortion cases are currently working their way through lower courts. And legal experts say these smaller cases could lead to a larger discussion about Roe v. Wade, and if that 1973 ruling were overturned, states could decide to make abortion illegal. But overturning Roe would go against general public opinion. A Politico/Morning Consult poll, conducted right after Justice Kennedy's retirement announcement, found 52 percent of respondents hope a new justice protects women's abortion rights, while 29 percent hoped the justice opposed abortion rights, and 19 percent didn't know or had no opinion. How the Senate Might Vote Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a moderate Republican who is seen as a crucial vote, has said she wouldn't support a nominee who "would demonstrate hostility" to Roe v. Wade. She may have been referring to another potential nominee, federal appeals court judge William Pryor, who once called the Roe decision an "abomination," though his chances are slim. This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has slammed both Barrett and Kavanaugh on Twitter over their abortion rights stances. This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. The bottom line: Judge Barrett has given every indication that she will be an activist judge on the Court. If chosen as the nominee, she will be the deciding vote to overturn Roe v. Wade and to strike down pre-existing conditions protections in the ACA. #WhatsAtStake — Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) July 2, 2018 This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. Brett Kavanaugh is a judge on the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit & on @realDonaldTrump’s pre-approved list, having passed the “litmus test” on overturning Roe v. Wade & striking down protections for ppl w/ pre-ex conditions in the ACA. Here’s #WhatsAtStake if he’s confirmed: — Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) July 3, 2018 It remains to be seen how either nomination would play out in the Senate. This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io<doc-sep>Supreme_Court_Wade_11 crop.jpg The United States Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. (Wikimedia Commons/Matt H. Wade, CC-BY-SA-3.0) The president met with seven potential Supreme Court picks this week. Two of the most talked about potential nominees are Roman Catholics, Judge Brett Kavanaugh and Judge Amy Coney Barrett. Kavanaugh was appointed by George W. Bush to the D.C. Court of Appeals, a frequent step en route to the Supreme Court, given the vast number of government-related cases its judges take, and Barrett was appointed by President Donald Trump to the Seventh Circuit last year. Barrett's nomination last year caused a bit of a stir when some Democratic senators engaged in a line of reasoning that Barrett's defenders thought was inappropriate and amounted to a violation of the Constitution's ban on any religious test for office in the United States. Others criticized Laurie Goodstein at The New York Times for raising the issue of Barrett's membership in a group of charismatic Catholics called People of Praise. My colleague here at NCR, Heidi Schlumpf, looks at that group today as well, and it would be irresponsible not to ask questions about the independence we want in a judge, independence that membership in this group would seem to preclude. My colleague Jesuit Fr. Tom Reese is a judicious person, but if we want judges to be independent and have the appearance of independence, and know Father Tom has taken a vow of obedience to his superior, we need to clear that up. When someone at People of Praise scrubbed Barrett's name and photos from the group's website, well, that is a red flag to us journalists and it should be to senators as well. Sens. Dianne Feinstein's and Dick Durbin's questions reflected a real ignorance of the history of anti-Catholic bigotry in this country. And they relied on misrepresentations of Barrett's positions made by interest groups that did not care overmuch about the truth. A former colleague of Barrett's at the University of Notre Dame Law School, Rick Garnett, pointed this out at his blog Mirror of Justice. But Garnett engages in his own intellectual sleight of hand when he writes, "The senators would not have asked — and the senators' defenders would not have tolerated — repetitive and badgering questioning of this kind of a practicing Muslim or Sikh (nor should they)." The blog Mirror of Justice says it is dedicated to "the development of Catholic legal theory." Even if there were a Muslim or Sikh equivalent, there are not five Muslims on the Supreme Court and there are no Sikh-sponsored universities with laws schools as we Catholics proudly boast, so the comparison does not ring true. Not all Catholic legal scholars agreed with Garnett. Cathleen Kaveny, a professor of both law and philosophy at Boston College, wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post that questioned the wording, but not the intent, of the senators' questions. "The Constitution cannot reasonably be read to prohibit asking a candidate for public office how her moral commitments would affect her public service," Kaveny observed. "Religious believers don't get a free pass." Now, David French, writing at the National Review, argues believers should get a free pass. "Why do some progressives single her [Barrett] out for particular scorn?" French asks. "It turns out she's a faithful Christian who lives a life very similar to millions upon millions of her fellow American believers. No, really, that's the objection." I am not sure how similar Barrett's life is to "millions upon millions" of her fellow Catholics: Some of what I know about the "People of Praise" gives me the willies. But, more importantly, how convenient to throw the charge of religious bigotry at anyone who opposes Barrett. And, perhaps, to dissuade reporters from learning more about this group, which certainly lives its faith in ways that are unrecognizable to "millions upon millions" of other Catholics. Many of us who are not what you would call ignorant of religion worry about Barrett for other reasons. If she is so great, why not let that greatness blossom for a bit on the Court of Appeals so that the case for her ascent to the Supreme Court is almost self-evident a few years' hence? I would oppose any nominee who is under 60 — is that an unconstitutional "age test"? — because I do not think any one person should have so much power for such a long time in a democracy. Nor do I think law professors make great justices. And I have long advocated for the appointment of someone with lived experience of one of the other branches to the high court. President Barack Obama still missed a great opportunity when he did not even consider former Vice President Al Gore for the court in 2009. Religious conservatives like to have their cake and eat it too (and not share it with the LGBT community, but that is a different story). They tell us that faith has to matter and that we should most certainly bring our faith into the public square. But when it comes time to nominate a Catholic judge, they say, "Well, a judge shouldn't bring any personal considerations to their task; their job is to apply the law not to make it." What then, precisely, is meant by the term "Catholic legal theory"? All judges make sense of the cases before them and the relevant law with recourse to some kind of legal theory. Could Barrett, who worked for so long at the nation's iconic Catholic university, really have not been affected in the least by the Catholicity of the place? It is possible. Barrett clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia, and while he embodied a distinctive type of ethnic Catholic personality, his Catholic faith had no impact on his judicial philosophy. Scalia embraced the doctrine of textualism or originalism, the idea that "the Constitution means no more or less than what it meant to those who originally wrote and ratified it." That is, he subscribed to a kind of textual idolatry akin to Martin Luther's sola scriptura approach to the Christian faith, and a fundamentalist hermeneutic akin to the Rev.<doc-sep>
Caren Bohan USA TODAY WASHINGTON – Two candidates on President Donald Trump’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees – federal appeals court Judges Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – were singled out for praise Sunday by a top legal adviser to the president, indicating they remain prominent in the search. Trump plans to announce his pick to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy during prime time Monday night. The president also has been considering federal appeals court Judges Raymond Kethledge and Thomas Hardiman. Leonard Leo, who is on leave from the Federalist Society and has been advising Trump over the court nomination, said he assumes Kavanaugh, Barrett, Hardiman and Kethledge “are the four” who are getting the most focus. “Certainly, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Barrett have a lot of name recognition among supporters of the president, and I think that ultimately, when people like them are nominated, you'll see a lot of folks line up,” he said. Leo said Hardiman of Pennsylvania and Kethledge of Michigan are “a little bit less known by conservatives. And their records are a little bit lighter.” He said that might mean it could take more time to generate the same level of conservative enthusiasm behind them. Trump said on Sunday he not made up his mind yet but expected to do so by noon on Monday, ahead of his announcement at 9 p.m. Eastern Time. “I’m getting very close to making a final decision. And I believe this person will do a great job,' the president told reporters before boarding Air Force One to head back to Washington from New Jersey, where he had spent the weekend at his golf club in Bedminster. "Well, it’s still – let’s say it’s the four people. But they’re excellent. Every one. You can’t go wrong." Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told Trump he believes Kethledge and Hardiman might be easier for the Senate to confirm than either Kavanaugh or Barrett, The New York times reported, citing Republican officials briefed on the conversations. The battle for Senate confirmation of Trump’s Supreme Court pick is likely to be one of the most intense. Conservative and liberal interest groups are poised to spend tens of millions of dollars in advertising and grass-roots activity. Shift to the right Any of the candidates on Trump’s short list would probably move the court to the right. Though Kennedy is a conservative, he was often a swing vote on big decisions, such as same-sex marriage, abortion and affirmative action. Republicans control the Senate by a 51-49 majority, making any efforts by Democrats to thwart Trump’s nominee an uphill battle. The liberals’ effort probably will focus on moderate GOP senators, such as Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, who might be wary of adding a hard-line conservative and risking decades-old precedents such as Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in 1973. Conservatives will focus on moderate Democrats running for re-election in Trump country, such as Indiana's Joe Donnelly, North Dakota's Heidi Heitkamp and West Virginia's Joe Manchin. Kavanaugh, 53, on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, is a favorite of the conservative legal establishment because of his long record on issues ranging from the separation of powers and executive privilege to abortion, immigration and gun rights. But his work on President Bill Clinton's impeachment, his close ties to President George W. Bush and his ruling on President Barack Obama's health care law, which he opposed on procedural rather than broader legal grounds, have raised concerns among some conservatives. Barrett of Indiana, 46, serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. She rocketed to the top of Trump's earlier list of 25 Supreme Court candidates after her performance during her confirmation hearing last fall, when Democrats cited her deep Catholic faith as a potential problem. She is the mother of seven children, including two from Haiti and one with special needs. Barrett spent much of her career as a law professor at the University of Notre Dame and has served as a judge for eight months, which gives her the least experience of any of the potential nominees.