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As part of his Republican presidential campaign eight years ago, Sen. Ted Cruz argued that the conservative U.S. Supreme Court wasn’t conservative enough. In fact, the Texan said Chief Justice John Roberts’ nomination — which the senator had supported years earlier — “was a mistake“ because the jurist wasn’t a reliable enough ally to the far-right cause.
It was a reminder that in contemporary GOP politics, there’s an important difference between conservative high court justices and conservative high court justices.
Eight years later, Republicans should probably be delighted that the nation has the most conservative Supreme Court in nearly a century. But some in the party still apparently still aren’t satisfied.
Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke to Hugh Hewitt this week, and the host noted in passing that he believes Donald Trump “hit three home runs with his Supreme Court appointments.” Hewitt then asked the Florida governor, “Are you going to make the same kind of pledge to the Republicans as you go around the country that your judges will be like the Trump judges?” DeSantis replied:
“Well, actually, I would say we’ll do better than that. I mean, I respect the three appointees he did, but none of those three are at the same level of Justices Thomas and Justice Alito. I think they are the gold standard, and so my justices will be along the lines of a Sam Alito and a Clarence Thomas.”
Or put another way, Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett are fine, but DeSantis doesn’t see them as quite reactionary enough. Yes, the governor is on record having praised their nominations after Trump first made them, but now that DeSantis has had an opportunity to see their far-right rulings, he’s comfortable telling GOP primary voters that his Supreme Court picks would be even further from anything resembling an American mainstream.
Oddly enough, the former president might not have a problem with that. Trump has repeatedly whined about the high court he helped reshape, writing last fall, “The Supreme Court has lost its honor, prestige, and standing, & has become nothing more than a political body, with our Country paying the price. They refused to even look at the Election Hoax of 2020. Shame on them!”
Later in the day, he mocked the institution’s low approval rating, attributing it to the justices being “unwilling to make bold, courageous, and proper decisions on Rigged and Stolen Elections, and are always wanting to be Politically Correct instead of doing what is BEST for the USA. We need Strength & Wisdom, NOW!”
Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern added in his latest column, “The top two contenders in the GOP primary have thus signaled that they will not seek a justice in the mold of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, or Amy Coney Barrett — raising the question of what, exactly, they will be looking for in a nominee.”