President-elect Donald Trump has at least one Supreme Court opening to fill when his term begins in January, and now there's a robust public debate about who he will choose to sit on the high court.
CNN breaks down the subject of Trump's Supreme Court pick, which has yet to be announced. And although he mostly shunned established conservatives during his presidential campaign, Trump is expected to rely on that group to put forth a conservative nominee who is pro-life.
Trump will be the first president since Richard Nixon in 1969 to begin his administration with an opening on the Supreme Court, CNN notes.
President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the court following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia earlier this year, but congressional Republicans refused to hold confirmation hearings for Garland in this election year.
With Trump's victory in the election came the assurance to the GOP that a conservative judge will be chosen for the court. And, given the age of some of the justices currently on the court — Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 83, Anthony Kennedy is 80, and Stephen Breyer is 78 — there could be at least one more seat to fill over the next four years.
The standard practice Republican presidents have followed when nominating someone to the Supreme Court is to choose someone who's young, in their 40s or early 50s. It's likely Trump will follow that blueprint, CNN reports.
Garland, on the other hand, is expected to return to the bench in January at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Trump will not pick him as a replacement for Scalia.
"I'm sure that President Trump will nominate a person of integrity, character and qualification," Donald B. Verrilli Jr., the former solicitor general in the Obama administration, told CNN.
"But I just think it's going to be impossible for Democrats in the Senate to think anything other than this was a seat that was stolen from them for partisan reasons by the shredding of the norms that ought to govern the Supreme Court confirmation process."
The Hill reports that Trump's list of potential justices contains 21 names, which includes Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and U.S. District Court judge Amul Thapar, who serves the Eastern District of Kentucky.
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