WASHINGTON (AP) – Donald Trump will enter the Oval Office with the ability to re-establish the Supreme Court’s conservative tilt and the chance to cement it for the long term.
Trump is expected to act quickly to fill one court vacancy and could choose the successor for up to three justices who will be in their 80s by the time his term ends.
The court has been short-handed since Justice Antonin Scalia died in February, and Trump has said he would seek someone in Scalia’s mold from a list of 21 people, mainly conservative state and federal judges in their 50s.
Trump’s victory was a vindication for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s strategy of refusing all year even to consider President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to take Scalia’s seat. McConnell announced on the night that Scalia died that the vacancy should be filled not by Obama, but by the next president. The Kentucky Republican was heavily criticized for his stance by Obama, other Democrats and even many legal scholars.
Now Garland’s nomination is dead, if not officially.