SOTOMAYOR DUCKS, DODGES, DIVES | Ted Cruz on the Long Short List | HOT BENCH TOMORROW
November 16, 2016
WALKING ON BROKEN GLASS
|Not Annie Lennox, but JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR who yesterday had to tip-toe around talking about DONALD TRUMP’S victorious election. Interviewed by Bill Press at the Hill Center on Capitol Hill, Sotomayor was careful to react to the election. When asked whether she was apprehensive about Trump taking the White House, Sotomayor said, “I’m going to demur from answering that question that way. I will answer it in a different way, which is I think that this is a time where every good person has an obligation both to continue being heard and to continue doing the right thing…We cannot afford for a president to fail. And it is true…that we have to support that which he does which is right, and help guide him to those right decisions. But we can’t afford despair, and we can’t afford to give up our pursuing of values that we and others have fought so hard to achieve.”
CUT FROM THE SAME CLOTH
|On NPR’s All Things Considered, Nina Totenberg spoke with Robert Siegel about the implications of Trump’s presidency on the Supreme Court. She responded to DONALD TRUMP’S 60 Minutes interview in which he discussed same-sex marriage and the right to an abortion. He said the SCOTUS case that legalized a woman’s right to choose ought to be overturned, while the case confirming the constitutionality of same-sex marriage is settled law. Totenberg notes that there is nothing different about the two rulings – they’re both constitutional decisions. She added, “The longer a decision is in place, the more weight it has. And in the case of abortion, that decision has been repeatedly reaffirmed over a period of 43 years – versus the same-sex marriage decision, which is just 17 months old.”
THE LONG SHORT LIST
|After a suggestion from SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM that he would make a great Supreme Court justice, LYIN’ TED CRUZ – as our president-elect liked to call him – met with DONALD TRUMP yesterday. This is a step most congressional Republicans have not yet taken. Bloomberg reports Trump is considering nominating the Texas senator to serve as U.S. attorney general. Apparently, Cruz is on the “long short list.”
TOP-ED
|In USA Today, Ilann Maazeli urges Democrats to stand up to Republicans and block any and all Supreme Court nominees from DONALD TRUMP. “An even greater principle is at stake this time: the integrity of the court itself. Democrats need to make clear that the Supreme Court is not a ward of the Republican Party.”
SLOW YOUR ROLL
|Can PRESIDENT TRUMP undermine abortion rights? Richard Wolf with USA Today says, “Not so fast.” There are several reasons why Trump couldn’t immediately upend abortion rights with his Supreme Court nominee, chiefly because he would still be short of a majority vote. He also adds, “The high court does not like to overrule its own precedents, particularly those that have stood for decades and affected millions of people. When it does, it tends to do so incrementally, which could mean allowing states to impose more restrictions on abortion without eliminating the federal right entirely.”
KEEP IT OG
|E. Gregory Wallace writes in The Hill that the Supreme Court will likely tilt toward original intent under DONALD TRUMP. “So what will President Trump’s judiciary look like? He says that he will nominate Supreme Court justices and federal judges who will interpret the Constitution according to its original public meaning, the interpretive approach championed by JUSTICE SCALIA.”
HOT BENCH TOMORROW
|Thursday, we bring you our latest hot bench interview in which we’ll get reactions to the election and a fresh take on why following the Supreme Court matters. For more Hot Bench interviews, check out past conversations with Nina Totenberg, Adam Liptak and Chris Geidner.