ELECTION GIVES REPUBLICANS ROOM TO RUN ON JUDICIARY | Democrats Grab The House | Trump Kisses Jeff Sessions Goodbye
November 7, 2018
THE DAY AFTER
|Most of today’s news focuses on the fallout from yesterday’s elections in which Democrats took back the House and Republicans strengthened their control of the Senate. Niels Lesniewski with Roll Call notes that the MITCH MCCONNELL Senate will now have an even easier time getting conservative judges on the federal bench under Trump.
KEEP CRANKING THEM OUT
|Gabby Orr and Daniel Lippman with POLITICO write, “President Donald Trump would have loved to see Republicans keep their grip on the House of Representatives in Tuesday’s midterm elections. But the GOP’s successful defense of its Senate majority was a huge consolation prize.” They note that the greatest value of the Senate is its role in approving and rejecting judicial nominations. “After Tuesday night’s electoral setback, the president and his team plan to stress his ability to install judges as he rallies support for the 2020 election, according to more than a half-dozen current and former Trump officials.”
HOW IT'S GONNA BE
|Russell Berman in The Atlantic also remarks on the likelihood that PRESIDENT TRUMP will get to “deepen his imprint” on the judiciary with an even bigger hold on the Senate majority.
JUSTICE IS SERVED
|You’d think the elections would have provided more than enough shake-ups of power, but the White House wanted to add one of their own to the mix today. At the request of the president, ATTORNEY GENERAL JEFF SESSIONS resigned today. Trump tweeted that Sessions would be replaced on an acting basis by Matthew G. Whitaker, who had been serving as Sessions’s chief of staff.
JUSTICE IGNORED
|Fix the Court notes that CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS yet again cast a vote when he shouldn’t have, weighing in on a case that conflicts with some of his own stock holdings. This marks the third time in the last three years that the Chief has missed a recusal due to his stock ownership. Justices Kennedy, Breyer and Kagan have also missed statutory recusals in the last few years.