Whatever openings Trump may be in a position to fill in the future, however, will be much more challenging. Ginsburg, 83, is among the most liberal justices on the court, and Democrats are likely to push back hard at Republican efforts to replace her with a hard-liner—perhaps even going so far as to filibuster Trump’s nominee. Senate Republicans have warned Democrats that should they try to filibuster Trump’s nominees, they could deploy the so-called “nuclear option” and move

“With each passing disappointment, people want to make sure this is not just someone who looks conservative, but is virtually guaranteed to be conservative on the bench,” said one veteran of past GOP Supreme Court confirmation fights, Curt Levey of Freedomworks and the Committee for Justice. The desire for a justice who is all but a sure conservative vote also seems to have limited Trump’s list to sitting judges, all with a substantial record of written decisions. Those clos

Doubts about Trump faded when Republicans and like-minded voters looked back at the High Court's unmistakably activist decisions on Obam

Donald Trump's election as president is due in no small part to the prominence of the Supreme Court in the campaign, following a spike in judicial activism this decade. Doubts about Trump faded when Republicans and like-minded voters looked back at the High Court's unmistakably activist decisions on ObamaCare and same-sex marriage, and considered the consequences of a Court dominated by Hillary Clinton appointees. Progressives who cheered those decisions may want to reflect

What would it take for Donald Trump to win the presidency? Pundits trying to answer that question turn to the patchwork of red and blue on the electoral vote map, looking for possible paths to the 270 electoral votes required to become president. Their answers range from somewhat complicated to ABC News' 700-word, four-step analysis and beyond. So let me simplify things for you. For Trump to be nearly certain of victory, it is both necessary and sufficient that he close his

In response to the first question in Wednesday's third and final presidential debate, Donald Trump declared that "if my opponent should win this race, … we will have a Second Amendment which will be a very, very small replica of what it is right now." That might sound like an overly pessimistic prediction, but it is actually the best gun owners can hope for under a Hillary Clinton presidency. Despite Clinton's protestations to the contrary Wednesday night, she supports even

While capriciously violating civil liberties is never an acceptable government action, some make the leap, arguing that federal authority ha

In the majority opinion for the unanimous Court in Riley v. California (2014), Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “The fact that technology n

What they forgot while blasting Trump and judicial confirmations Perhaps the cocktails preceding the June 9 welcome dinner at the American Constitution Society's annual convention are to blame, but when Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren addressed the dinner, they appeared to be suffering from memory problems. As they spoke about the Senate's handling of President Obama's judicial nominees and Donald Trump's remarks concerning a Mexican-American judge, their