Reports: Biden to nominate Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court



Reports indicate that President Joe Biden will nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, fulfilling a campaign promise to select the first black woman to sit on the high court.

Jackson, 51, currently sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. As a former clerk for retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, Jackson was widely considered to be a front-runner for the nomination.

CNN reported that Biden called her Thursday night to offer the nomination and she accepted.

The president is expected to make a public announcement about the nomination Friday.

Jackson, a native of Washington, D.C., has experience as a public defender and member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, as well as a nearly nine-year tenure as a federal judge. She served on the federal district court in D.C. as an appointee of President Barack Obama before Biden nominated her for the D.C. Circuit last year.

There is some expectation that Jackson will face a smooth path to confirmation in the U.S. Senate. Her confirmation to the D.C. Circuit last year was supported by three Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Additionally, she is a relative by marriage of former House Speaker Paul Ryan, who ran for vice president on the 2012 Republican ticket.

Jackson's confirmation to the Supreme Court would not change the makeup of the court, where six Republican-appointed justices hold a majority over the three Democratic appointees.

During the confirmation process, Jackson's record will face scrutiny, including several high-profile rulings that were later overturned by higher courts.

"Judge Jackson's record of reversals by the left-leaning D.C. Circuit is troubling for anyone concerned about the rule of law," Judicial Crisis Network president Carrie Severino told Fox News Digital earlier this month. "For example, in Make the Road New York v. Wolf, a D.C. Circuit panel composed of a majority of Democratic nominees concluded that Jackson had set aside a Trump administration rule where there was no legal basis to do so."

"Cases like these suggest that Jackson might be willing in politically charged cases to ignore the law to deliver a particular policy outcome, and that's not what we want to see from a Supreme Court justice," she said.

Other overturned rulings by Jackson include a 2019 case centered on an order that expanded the Department of Homeland Security's definition of which non-citizens could be deported. A 2-1 decision by the D.C. Circuit Court said that reviewing DHS policy did not fall under the Administrative Procedure Act, overturning Jackson's opinion.

Another case involving three orders on the collective bargaining power for federal employees was overturned unanimously by the D.C. Circuit Court, which ruled Jackson did not have jurisdiction to adjudicate the case.

Senate Republicans previously brought up these overturned cases and others during her confirmation to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia last year.

Radical left-wing judicial nominee Dale Ho doesn't think Florida is a democracy



A radical left-wing Biden judicial nominee apparently believes that the state of Florida is not a democracy, according to comments he made years ago that will complicate his Senate confirmation.

Dale Ho, a former ACLU lawyer, is President Joe Biden's nominee for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. He made headlines last month after video from a 2018 lecture he gave resurfaced, in which Ho said that the United States Senate and the Electoral College were "anti-democratic" institutions. At the time, Ho was the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's voting rights project.

In 2019, video resurfaced by Townhall.com; Ho gave another lecture where he questions Florida's state as a democracy because of laws prohibiting certain felons from voting.

In 2019, Biden federal district judge nominee Dale Ho wondered "how do you call Florida a democracy" when convicted felons are unable to vote in Florida.pic.twitter.com/sjNYWTHbjP
— Townhall.com (@Townhall.com) 1642020714

"How do you call Florida a democracy if one out of ten people can't vote in that state because of a criminal conviction?" he asked rhetorically.

The ACLU and other left-wing activist groups oppose laws that prevent felons from voting, referring to them as "disenfranchisement laws." According to the ACLU, an estimated 5.85 million Americans with felony convictions are not allowed to vote because of such state laws.

In Florida, it is illegal for convicted murderers or those with a felony sexual offense to vote. Individuals convicted of other offenses may have their voting rights restored after completion of their sentences, including parole and probation. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in 2019 signed a controversial law that defines "completion of sentence" to include the full payment of any restitution and fees. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law in October after two Florida felons claimed Florida's Republican-controlled legislature intended to discriminate against low-income minorities by creating a financial barrier to the restoration of felon voting rights.

But other states have similar laws, some even more restrictive than Florida's. Townhall writer Spencer Brown observes that by Ho's standards, Alabama, Arizona, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Wyoming aren't democracies either.

Ho has previously called referred to "felon disenfranchisement" as stripping "the right to vote from people because of a criminal conviction," arguing that states need to change their laws to remove "long-standing barriers" to voting.

He's made many other controversial comments, some of which were brought up by Republican senators during his confirmation hearing in early December. In one tweet, Ho suggested that Republicans would use a Supreme Court majority to remain in power if the "Electoral College, Senate malapportionment and extreme gerrymandering" were insufficient.

In writings, Ho said a colleague once asked him if he works as a voting rights lawyer because he wants to help people or because "you hate conservatives," which became the subject of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's grilling questions.

And in 2015, Ho compared voter identification requirements to "chemotherapy."

"Obviously, all of us are against voter fraud, right?" he said. "The question that I think we have to ask ourselves is whether or not the mechanism that we’re using to try to prevent this problem is appropriate to the task. I’m against cancer, but I don’t think everyone in this room should get chemotherapy."

Biden creates commission to study packing the Supreme Court



President Joe Biden on Friday announced a new executive order that will form a commission to study expanding the Supreme Court, fulfilling a campaign promise to progressive activists who demanded the new administration pack the courts in response to President Donald Trump's appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

The commission will feature various legal experts and scholars who will hold public meetings and debate and discuss with other experts over 180 days on the question of whether reforms are needed to change the structure and nature of the United States Supreme Court.

"The Commission's purpose is to provide an analysis of the principal arguments in the contemporary public debate for and against Supreme Court reform, including an appraisal of the merits and legality of particular reform proposals," the White House said in a statement.

"The topics it will examine include the genesis of the reform debate; the Court's role in the Constitutional system; the length of service and turnover of justices on the Court; the membership and size of the Court; and the Court's case selection, rules, and practices."

During former President Donald Trump's term in office, the Senate confirmed 174 of his judicial nominees to federal district courts, 54 to appellate courts, and three to the Supreme Court. Trump's third Supreme Court nominee, Justice Barrett, was confirmed just eight days before the 2020 presidential election, which infuriated Democrats who had argued that her confirmation should be delayed until after the election, when the new Congress, now a Democratic majority, would be in session.

In response to these legacy-defining actions, Democratic activists have demanded that President Biden take action to dramatically reshape the federal judiciary, including packing the Supreme Court to diminish the power of the perceived 6-3 conservative majority.

On the 2020 campaign trail, Biden, who formerly served in the United States Senate as the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, repeatedly demurred on the question of expanding the court. While initially he voiced opposition to the idea, toward the end of the campaign he appeased progressive activists by signaling openness to debate on reforming the courts, ultimately promising to create a commission to study the issue if he won the White House.

Friday's executive order will create that commission, which consists of 36 individuals appointed by the president. The commission will be co-chaired by Yale Law School professor Cristina Rodriguez and New York University law professor and former White House counsel Bob Bauer.


Report: Democrats explore expanding federal district courts to offset Trump's judicial legacy



Democratic lawmakers are reportedly exploring the possibility of expanding the number of federal district court judgeships in order to roll back former President Donald Trump's judicial legacy.

What's the background?

Trump's greatest presidential legacy may be the influence he wielded over the federal judiciary. During his presidency, Trump was responsible for appointing 174 federal district court judges, 54 appellate court judges, and three Supreme Court justices.

Most of the judges are ideologically conservative, meaning Trump enacted generational change within the federal judiciary.

Now, with Democrats having control over the White House and Congress, Democratic lawmakers are exploring how to reverse Trump's judicial legacy in a way that does not draw as much attention as would packing the Supreme Court.

What are Democrats planning?

According to The Hill, Democrats are increasingly considering expanding the number of federal district court judgeships, which would allow Biden to have significant influence over the shaping of the federal judiciary over at least the next two years.

Currently, there are 52 district court vacancies and four circuit court vacancies. Overall, there are currently 678 district judgeships.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) publicly floated the idea recently, citing bloated case loads in western New York.

"I have in the city of Buffalo a huge — they don't have enough judges. There's this long line before you can get to court because they don't have enough. So we could expand those," Schumer said on MSNBC.

Interestingly, the proposal could garner bipartisan support, because there is precedent for expanding the district court system and because case loads nationwide would be alleviated by having more justices share in the work.

In fact, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said at least one Republican lawmaker has already told him he would support district court expansion.

"Interestingly enough, I had a Republican senator who approached me about expanding the number of federal judges in his state, so there seems to be some sentiment that there [are] backlogs in the dockets of federal judges," Durbin said, The Hill reported.

What would it take?

Expanding district court judgeships would require congressional approval, which means Republicans would have to support the expansion.

It remains unknown whether Republicans would actually do that, considering the political ramifications of allowing Biden to nominate even more federal judges. And with the Senate requiring a simple majority approval for judicial confirmations these days, expanding the federal district courts would undoubtedly benefit Biden and Democrats.

But the option also makes political sense for Democrats.

That's because only about one-third of Americans support expanding the Supreme Court. Such an effort would be widely viewed as overly partisan and likely backfire at the voting booths next election. Targeting the district courts, however, would certainly be less controversial.

Donald Trump Pledges to Defund Planned Parenthood in Next Term

President Donald Trump pledged to pro-life Americans in a letter released Thursday that he will defund Planned Parenthood if he is elected to a second term in November.