Joe.My.God. LGBT News
The Associated Press reports:
Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has released a list of 11 potential Supreme Court justices he plans to vet to fill the seat of late Justice Antonin Scalia if he’s elected to the White House.
Trump’s picks include Steven Colloton of Iowa, Allison Eid of Colorado and Raymond Gruender of Missouri.
Also on the list are: Thomas Hardiman of Pennsylvania, Raymond Kethledge of Michigan, Joan Larsen of Michigan, Thomas Lee of Utah, William Pryor of Alabama, David Stras of Minnesota, Diane Sykes of Wisconsin and Don Willett of Texas. Trump had previously named Pryor and Sykes as examples of kind of justices he would choose.
The news comes as Trump is working to bring together a fractured Republican Party and earn the trust of skill-skeptical establishment Republicans who question his electability in the general election and conservatives in his party still weary of his commitment to their cause.
In a statement, Trump said the list “is representative of the kind of constitutional principles I value” and said that, as president, he would use it “as a guide to nominate our next United States Supreme Court Justices.”
His campaign stressed the list was compiled “first and foremost, based on constitutional principles, with input from highly respected conservatives and Republican Party leadership.”
More from Politico:
The list includes six George W. Bush appointees to federal appeals courts, along with five state Supreme Court judges. George W. Bush appointed both Colloton and Gruender to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in 2003 and 2004, respectively. Pryor was appointed to the Eleventh Circuit in 2004, the same year Bush appointed Sykes to the Seventh Circuit. Bush appointed Hardiman to the Third Circuit in 2007 and Kethledge to the Sixth Circuit in 2008.
Colorado Republican Gov. Bill Owens tapped Eid to serve as the state’s 95th Supreme Court justice in 2006, while Larsen was appointed by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder as an associate justice of Michigan’s supreme court in 2015. Utah Gov. Gary Herbert appointed Lee to the state Supreme Court in 2010, the same year Minnesota Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty appointed Stras to Minnesota’s highest court. Texas Gov. Rick Perry appointed Don Willett to the state’s supreme court in 2005.