Tuesday’s election results may offer hope to Americans fed up with judicial activism: Without majority support in the Senate, the days of rubber-stamp approval for President Obama’s most extreme judicial nominees may be coming to an end.
Since taking office in 2009, Obama has named 53 appeals court judges and 223 trial court judges, all with lifetime tenure. He was aided by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, who changed the Senate rules to prevent Republicans from filibustering judicial nominees, with the exception of nominations to the Supreme Court.
In a few short years, those judges have transformed the legal landscape at the federal level – nine out of the thirteen federal appellate courts are now adjudicated by majorities of liberal Democratic appointees, compared to just one when Obama took office. Those courts have been at the forefront of sweeping national changes; most notably on the issue of same-sex “marriage,” as they have overturned dozens of state laws defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman.
Obama-appointed judges have also struck down multiple pro-life bills aimed at restricting abortion-on-demand and holding abortionists to the same safety standards as other surgeons, and they’ve fought hard to defend ObamaCare – especially the controversial HHS birth control mandate, which was nonetheless eventually struck down by the Supreme Court.
Obama has made a point of choosing nominees based on their perceived diversity – particularly diversity of sexual preference. “When I came into office, I think there was one openly gay judge who had been appointed,” Obama told The New Yorker last month. “We’ve appointed ten.” He has also tended to favor younger judges who are likely to serve many decades on the bench, meaning his picks are likely to have lasting impact.
But the incoming Republican-led Senate is unlikely to approve Obama’s future nominees – before Sen. Reid took away their ability to filibuster, the GOP had tried to block 77 nominations on the grounds that the judges in question had histories of judicial activism and extreme liberal bias.
The person most unhappy with the GOP takeover is probably the famously liberal U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. At 81, she is the oldest member of the court, and she often gets asked about her retirement plans. Asked by Elle Magazine whether she’d consider leaving the bench while Obama is still president, she said, “Who do you think President Obama could appoint at this very day, given the boundaries that we have? If I resign any time this year, he could not successfully appoint anyone I would like to see in the court.”
