Richard Viguerie: Judge Pryor Is 90 Percent Good, but That Won’t Be Enough
One of the issues that motivated the vast majority of cultural conservatives to unite behind President Donald Trump’s candidacy was the prospect of Hillary Clinton choosing enough justices of the Supreme Court to give it a multigenerational Far Left majority.
And with President Trump meeting with key senators today about the nomination, it is vital for conservatives to contact the White House and to respectfully urge President Trump to avoid nominating Judge William Pryor to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court may have been the primary factor uniting President Trump’s disparate coalition of cultural conservatives, economic conservatives, national security conservatives, limited-government constitutional conservatives, populists and libertarians.
No one in any of these segments of the conservative-populist coalition wanted Hillary Clinton in charge of choosing the next class of Supreme Court justices, and all were willing to set aside whatever other concerns they may have had to put their trust in Donald Trump to get this one most important choice right.
The word from inside President Trump’s White House is that there are now three finalists for the nomination to replace the late great Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court: Judge Thomas Michael Hardiman of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit; Judge Neil Gorsuch of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, and, Judge William Pryor of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
During the campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump released a list of 21 potential Supreme Court nominees that was met with reaction from conservatives ranging from general approval to ecstasy depending on who you defined as a “conservative.”
No one viewed this as a list of equals—rather it was a list of “definitely better than whoever might be on Hillary Clinton’s list.”
My friend Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association, looked at the list of rumored finalists and came to this conclusion: “[11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge William] Pryor may be 90 percent good on his decisions, but that is not good enough. … We need someone who will be just like Scalia, 100 percent, in terms of their judicial philosophy.”
And that really is the test that we urge President Trump to apply to his choice for the Supreme Court—who among the potential nominees will be the heir to the judicial and intellectual legacy of Justice Antonin Scalia?
To express your preference for a Supreme Court nominee who will be an heir to the judicial and intellectual legacy of Justice Antonin Scalia contact the White House through this link.
Justice Antonin Scalia was not only a great originalist jurist, but he boldly confronted the progressive legal and judicial establishment, which so often has chosen political correctness over the Constitution and the rule of law.
In choosing a justice to fill the large shoes of Justice Scalia, I believe Judge William Pryor falls short of the high standards President Trump has set to make America great again. Judging by his record, it appears Judge Pryor would not stand up to the political correctness of the progressive legal and judicial establishments like Justice Scalia did.
Judge Pryor did not dissent in Keeton v. Anderson-Wiley, where Augusta State University counseling student Jennifer Keeton was told that her Christian beliefs were incompatible with the prevailing views in her college counseling program, or in Glenn v. Brumby that expanded the Equal Protection Clause to include transgender individuals in a matter involving government employment, a decision that was used by various Obama administration agencies (Justice, Labor, Education, HUD and the EEOC) as a basis for more litigation and interpretations in areas beyond government employment.
Justice Scalia was noted for upholding the rule of law, respecting the proper role of the judiciary, and acknowledging the separation of powers. He was never sidetracked by trying to appease or please his progressive colleagues in their pursuit of political correctness over the constitutional rule of law. Judge Pryor does not seem to be his heir.
Democrats in the Senate have already begun to attack those rumored to be on President Trump’s short list as “extremists” and have made it clear that no verifiable conservative is going to get a free ride through the confirmation process.
This is why it is so important that President Trump choose a Supreme Court nominee who will unite, not divide his coalition.
I urge CHQ readers to contact the White House and take this opportunity to respectfully urge President Trump to avoid nominating Judge William Pryor to the Supreme Court and to instead nominate someone who will unite his coalition by being a worthy heir to Justice Scalia. {eoa}
Richard Viguerie transformed American politics in the 1960s and ’70s by pioneering the use of direct mail fundraising in the political and ideological spheres. He used computerized direct mail fundraising to help build the conservative movement, which then elected Ronald Reagan as the first conservative president of the modern era. As the “Funding Father of the conservative movement,” Viguerie motivated millions of Americans to participate in politics for the first time, greatly expanding the base of active citizenship. He is our era’s equivalent of Tom Paine, using a direct mail letter rather than a pamphlet to deliver his call to arms.
This article was originally published at conservativehq.com. Used with permission.
