Making SCOTUS Great Again: Trump's Supreme Court Shortlist
These 11 potential justices are well within the mainstream of conservative legal thought.
Donald Trump’s Supreme Court Short List
Judge Steven M. Colloton
1. Steven Colloton: Colloton, 53, was appointed to the Eighth Circuit by President George W. Bush in 2003. He graduated from Princeton for college and Yale for law school, and he clerked for Chief Justice Rehnquist on the Supreme Court. He worked at OLC and as an AUSA before being appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa, his post right before joining the bench. He’s a highly regarded judge who has fed at least two of his clerks into SCOTUS clerkships (and there’s a veiled reference to him as a possible GOP SCOTUS nominee in Supreme Ambitions (affiliate link)).
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2. Allison Eid: Born in 1965 (so she turned or will turn 51 this year), Eid has served on the Colorado Supreme Court since 2006. The Stanford and Chicago Law grad is also a former SCOTUS clerk herself (for Justice Thomas). She worked at Arnold & Porter, taught at the University of Colorado Law School, and served as Colorado’s Solicitor General before Republican Governor Bill Owens appointed her to her current post.
3. Raymond Gruender: The 52-year-old, Missouri-based judge was appointed by the second President Bush to the Eighth Circuit in 2004. He has three degrees — an AB, a JD, and an MBA — from Washington University in St. Louis. He served as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri before his confirmation to the Eighth Circuit.
4. Thomas Hardiman: Hardiman, 50, has experience as both a trial and appellate judge: he served on the Western District of Pennsylvania from 2003 to 2007 and on the Third Circuit since 2007 (alongside Trump’s older sister, Maryanne Trump Barry — but Trump has expressly ruled out appointing his sis to SCOTUS). Hardiman, a graduate of Notre Dame and Georgetown Law, practiced at Skadden in D.C. and then at two Pittsburgh firms, Titus & McConomy and Reed Smith, before taking the bench.
5. Raymond Kethledge: The fresh-faced 49-year-old was appointed by President Bush to the Sixth Circuit in 2008. Kethledge graduated from the University of Michigan for both college and law school. He’s the third SCOTUS clerk on this list (Justice Kennedy). He worked in private practice and in-house at Ford Motor before taking the bench. (There’s also a disguised shout-out to him as a Republican Supreme Court contender in Supreme Ambitions.)
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6. Joan Larsen: Larsen, who was born in 1968 (so she’s around 48), was appointed to the Michigan Supreme Court by Governor Rick Snyder last year. She’s the fourth former SCOTUS clerk on this list — so if nominated and confirmed by a President Trump, she’d take the seat held by her former boss, Justice Scalia. She graduated from the University of Northern Iowa and Northwestern Law (first in her class). She was a law professor at the University of Michigan before becoming a judge.
7. Thomas Lee: He’s part of a legal/political royal family: his father was former U.S. Solicitor General Rex Lee, and his brother is current U.S. Senator Mike Lee (so there’s at least one vote in the Senate — or two, because Senator Cruz would surely support him — or eight, if all his fellow Mormons support him). Justice Lee, who’s around 52 (born 1964), joined the Utah Supreme Court in 2010. He graduated from BYU for college and U. Chicago for law school, and he has taught at BYU Law since 1997 (previously as full-time faculty, these days as an adjunct). For those of you who are counting, he’s SCOTUS clerk #5 on the Trump shortlist (Justice Thomas).
Judge William Pryor
8. William Pryor: It’s no surprise that the 54-year-old Eleventh Circuit judge made the shortlist, since Donald Trump had previously mentioned Judge Pryor as his kind of nominee. Judge Pryor got his bachelor’s degree from Northeast Louisiana University (now University of Louisiana, Monroe) and his law degree from Tulane. He clerked on the Fifth Circuit for the legendary John Minor Wisdom, worked in private practice, and served as Alabama’s attorney general before taking his seat on the Eleventh Circuit (where he has fed several clerks to SCOTUS).
9. David Stras: The youngest nominee on the list (he’s just 41), Justice Stras has served on the Minnesota Supreme Court since 2010. He has three degrees — BA, MBA, JD — from the University of Kansas. He’s the sixth SCOTUS clerk on this list (Justice Thomas — in fact, CT has three clerks on this shortlist). He was a law professor at the University of Minnesota Law before donning the black robes. (Disclosure: I’m a fan of Justice Stras; we clerked together on the Ninth Circuit.)
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Judge Diane Sykes
10. Diane Sykes: Like Judge Pryor, the 58-year-old Judge Sykes has been cited before by Donald Trump as a SCOTUS possibility. She’s a graduate of Northwestern and Marquette Law. She worked in private practice before beginning an extensive judicial career that has included service as a Wisconsin trial judge, Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, and Seventh Circuit judge (since 2004). Fun fact: she’s the ex-wife of conservative Wisconsin talk show host Charlie Sykes, who went after Trump hard — and helped Ted Cruz prevail — in the Wisconsin GOP primary. (Disclosure: I adore Judge Sykes, whom I have followed ever since she made my list of Superhotties of the Federal Judiciary back in 2004, and have joked to friends that a Justice Sykes might be one good thing to come out of a Trump Administration.)
11. Don Willett: Justice Willett, 49, has served on the Texas Supreme Court since 2011. Prior to taking the bench, the Baylor and Duke Law grad clerked for the Fifth Circuit, worked at Haynes and Boone, served in the George W. Bush Administrations (plural — both gubernatorial and presidential), and worked in the Texas Attorney General’s office under then-AG Greg Abbott.
Regular readers of Above the Law are of course familiar with Justice Willett. We’ve covered him extensively in these pages, mainly for his brilliant use of Twitter (follow him: @JusticeWillett). It’s a little amusing to see him on the Trump list — if you go through Justice Willett’s (very active) Twitter feed, you can find a few tweets that could be read as subtle jabs or pokes at Trump. [UPDATE (5:15 p.m.): Or maybe not so subtle; see this Mediaite round-up.]
Justice Don Willett and David Lat at an event for the Houston Urban Debate League.
On the other hand, Justice Willett was previously identified by Ed Kilgore of New York Magazine as a possible Trump nominee (for his views on Lochner — views also admired by Trump nemesis George F. Will, so if Justice Willett is nominated, he might be the only thing in a Trump Administration that Will can support). (Disclosure: I’m a fan (and friend) of Justice Willett; we’ve appeared together on a few occasions, most recently on a panel about social media at the Fifth Circuit Judicial Conference.)
So there you have it: the eight men and three women that President Donald Trump might appoint to the Supreme Court of the United States. I’m not a Trump fan personally (I like my politicians more Establishment), but I must admit: this list is pretty, pretty good, at least for those of us with right-of-center tastes in judges.
UPDATE (5:25 p.m.): Perhaps not surprisingly, progressives aren’t pleased with Donald Trump’s SCOTUS shortlist. See, e.g., Mark Joseph Stern’s piece at Slate, Trump’s Supreme Court Shortlist Just Made Conservatives Very, Very Happy. Or, more succinctly, Ian Millhiser on Twitter:
UPDATE (5:36 p.m.): And conservatives seem thrilled. See, e.g., John Yoo, Trump’s Judicial Appointments List Is Filled with Outstanding Conservatives.
[UPDATE (9/26/2016, 4:00 p.m.): Trump has supplemented this list with ten more names.)]
Trump unveils list of his top Supreme Court picks [Associated Press]
Trump Releases 11 Possible SCOTUS Picks [USA Today]
Earlier: Donald Trump’s Supreme Court Nominees
President Trump’s Supreme Court Shortlist: 5 Possible Nominees
David Lat is the founder and managing editor of Above the Law and the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@abovethelaw.com.
