I was thinking of just tacking this on an existing thread. But I’ll play it safe. I’ll start it as a new thread.
Just a purely political question. As I write this, ABC News has just reported the SCOTUS overturning Roe v. Wade. No big surprise there, I guess.
But if Ted Cruz was elected president in 2016 instead of Mr. Donald Trump (I’ll use him in my example ) would this be happened right now? Would Roe v. Wade have been overturned, right here right now? Assume for my example that Mr. Joe Biden is the current president.
Why would it be different? Trump nominated from a slate of federalist society judges. Even if there had been some individual difference in nomination we’ve seen that the federalist society gets their ideological picks pretty consistent. And if anything Cruz is likely more aware of who might not be a good soldier because of connections he made when clerking for Rehnquist.
Of course it would have. The die was cast when Susan Collins decided to trust people who promised her that they wouldn’t overturn Roe even when anybody with half a brain knew better. She voted for Alito, Roberts, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh.
And when the voters didn’t punish the GOP for their rank hypocrisy around the Garland nomination.
The only possible change would be if the senate election went differently. It’s possible, that some independents, thinking that Cruz had a good chance of winning compared to Trump, turn out to vote from for Democrat senators. PA, WI, and MO were all close. Two of them to flip Dem it’s a tied Senate, three and Schumer’s in control for at least 2 years.
Yep. Trump didn’t have anything to do with this. Any Republican president elected would’ve gotten us where we are right now. Lying supreme court nominees would’ve lied the same way with a different Republican president.
Yeah, there was a ton of last minute dark money dumped into senate races in WI and PA, that may have pushed the Senate to R. I still see a Cruz vs Hillary race as being about 50/50 going into Election Day, maybe some may have been more motivated to get out and vote
I agree that the outcome would have been the same. I do think that Cruz would have made slightly different choices from the Federalist list. IMHO, Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett were minor league players. Whereas, because of his own history in the legal profession, Cruz would have had more discerning thoughts, and looked at candidates more in the Gorsuch mold. Regardless, whoever he chose would have voted the same way.
The key to all of this was when Kavenaugh was confirmed. There is no way he had the temperment to be a Supreme Court justice and when the Pubs (except for Murkowski) and Manchin (can’t you Dems control your own members?) confirmed Party Brett to SCOTUS then it confirmed to everyone that Trump could appoint whomever he wanted. That leads to Amy Coney Barrett, the Betsy DeVos of judgeship with her “Catholics can’t be trusted to not rule based on religion but I can” attitude the die was cast. Would things have been different under Cruz? Probably not. He would have appointed Religious Right justices as well and IMHO it was Alito, appointed by GWB, that was the driving force to overturn Roe v. Wade so Cruz’s appointees would have just gone along.
) would this be happened right now? Would Roe v. Wade have been overturned, right here right now? Assume for my example that Mr. Joe Biden is the current president.