With liberal bloc aging, Trump may get more Supreme Court appointments

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With 86-year-old liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg enduring a series of health scares, the question of whether President Donald Trump will get to make yet another U.S. Supreme Court appointment before the 2020 election lingers as the nine justices prepare to begin their new term next week.

The justices, set to hold a private conference on Tuesday to discuss taking new cases after a three-month summer break, open their next nine-month term on Monday, with arguments pending in the coming weeks in major cases involving gay and transgender rights, immigration and other issues.

Trump, who took office in 2017 and is seeking re-election next year, already has appointed two justices – conservatives Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch – who have pushed the court further to the right.

The court has a 5-4 conservative majority, and two of the four liberal justices are over 80 years old, including Stephen Breyer, who turned 81 last month. Ginsburg, a justice since 1993, underwent radiation therapy in August to treat a cancerous tumor on her pancreas after having two cancerous nodules in her left lung removed last December.

The stakes could not be higher for the Supreme Court.

With Trump’s fellow Republicans in control of the Senate, which wields confirmation power over federal judicial nominations, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is well placed to push through another Trump Supreme Court appointment even if the vacancy arises close to the November 2020 election.

If Trump, running for re-election, were to win a second four-year term next year, he potentially would be able to replace both Ginsburg and Breyer, leaving the court with a rock-solid 7-2 conservative majority, possibly for decades to come. That could mean a rightward shift on numerous matters including abortion restrictions, expanding gun rights, blunting the advance of LGBT rights, maintaining the death penalty and bolstering the interests of corporations.

McConnell, who has made confirmation of Trump judicial appointees a paramount priority, made clear his intentions when asked in May at an event in his home state of Kentucky what he would do if a Supreme Court vacancy arose in 2020.

“Oh, we’d fill it,” McConnell said.

McConnell in 2016 refused to allow the Senate to act when Democratic former President Barack Obama nominated federal appellate judge Merrick Garland to fill a vacancy created by the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia – a move Democrats have described as the theft of a Supreme Court seat.

In justifying their inaction on Garland, McConnell and other Republicans argued that the Senate should not confirm a Supreme Court nominee during a presidential election year. Trump won the 2016 election and in 2017 named Gorsuch to replace Scalia.

‘ON MY WAY’

Ginsburg, who previously underwent treatment for colon cancer in 1999 and pancreatic cancer in 2009, is expected to be on the bench when the new term opens.

“I am on my way to being very well,” Ginsburg said on Aug. 31 during an appearance at a Washington event.

The diminutive and frail-looking justice also appeared in recent weeks alongside Justice Sonia Sotomayor at an event celebrating retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, 89, the first woman to serve on the court.

Compared to Ginsburg, who was a pioneering women’s rights lawyer before becoming a justice and has become something of an icon to American liberals, Breyer keeps a lower profile. His most recent public appearance was in London on Sept. 16. He is not known to have had any health scares since a bicycle fall in 2013 in which he fractured a shoulder.

Former senior Republican Senate aide Mike Davis, who runs a group called the Article III Project that he set up to support Trump’s judicial nominations, said he would expect Republicans to be energized by any potential election-year vacancy. But Davis said he also would expect Democrats to put up a fight.

“If people thought that Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation fight was ugly, just wait until the next one,” Davis said, referring to contentious Senate hearings in which Kavanaugh denied allegations of decades-old sexual misconduct.

No president since Republican Ronald Reagan has appointed more than two justices to the Supreme Court. Reagan named three in his eight years as president, from 1981 to 1989. The last president to have had more than two Supreme Court appointments in his first term in office was Republican President Richard Nixon, who named four in that term running from 1969 to 1973.

Since Nixon was first elected, Republican presidents have filled 14 of the 18 Supreme Court vacancies that have arisen.

Liberal activists are resigned to the idea that Republicans would seize on any opening to expand the court’s conservative majority, even if a vacancy occurs close to the 2020 election.

“They would jump at the chance to make it (the conservative majority) 6-3. I don’t think it matters to them. It’s a raw power grab on their part,” said Christopher Kang, chief counsel at the liberal legal activist group Demand Justice.

If Senate Republicans push through a nomination – in particular in a scenario in which a Trump selection is confirmed after he loses the election but before a new president takes office – it would build momentum among Democrats for an idea promoted by some liberals for adding more seats to the court to loosen the conservative stranglehold, Kang said.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung and Richard Cowan; Editing by Will Dunham)

Amid cries of ‘traitor,’ Canada’s Trudeau set for ugly election

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau takes part in an interview with Maclean's journalist Paul Wells at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, September 17, 2018. REUTERS/Chris Wattie

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who swept to power on a wave of optimism in 2015, is set for an ugly reelection campaign this October, judging by exchanges with voters in public town halls this month where he was grilled on topics ranging from immigration to housing affordability.

Opinion polls show his center-left Liberals are barely ahead of their rivals, and party insiders privately admit they might lose their majority in the House of Commons, which would crimp the government’s ability to govern.

“The next election is going to be a referendum on Justin Trudeau…and whether or not people think he has performed,” said Ipsos Public Affairs pollster Darrell Bricker.

In contrast to more gentle exchanges in previous years, angry citizens slammed Trudeau for bungling the construction of pipelines, breaking promises to respect the right of indigenous groups, ignoring a pledge to balance the budget and allowing too many migrants into Canada.

Liberal insiders say as a result of the feedback from the town halls, where attendees can also jot down their concerns on paper, policy tweaks are already being considered.

Public unhappiness over illegal immigrants crossing the border from the United States is so great that the party will consider a promise to clamp down further, even though Ottawa considers the matter is under control, said one top Liberal.

Widespread complaints about the lack of affordable housing are likely to produce a commitment for more spending, said the Liberal, who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the situation.

WE HANG TRAITORS FOR TREASON

The verdict from voters is definitely mixed, judging by Trudeau’s experiences as he traveled the country in January taking questions from all-comers, a practice he says helps him break out of what he calls the Ottawa bubble.

A woman at a town hall in the province of Saskatchewan in Canada’s west, a region where the Liberals are in trouble, accused Trudeau of “working for your globalist partners” to betray Canada.

“What do we do with traitors in Canada, Mr. Trudeau?  We used to hang them, hang them for treason,” the woman told the stunned prime minister after asking him about Moslem sharia law and Saudi Arabian oil imports.

In the Quebec town of Saint-Hyacinthe, a man dressed in a yellow vest swore loudly at Trudeau and accused him of selling out the country.

Liberals like the town halls on the grounds they demonstrate Trudeau is not afraid to take tough questions.

Yet they also admit the exchanges show voters have more urgent concerns than topics such as gender equality, climate change and the aboriginal rights that Trudeau has been pushing hard at home and abroad since he took power in 2015.

“We need to focus on things that are of interest to all Canadians and not just some of them,” conceded a second Liberal.

While Trudeau has emerged as one of the world’s leading progressive leaders, at home Canadians are concentrating more on their jobs and taxes, said Bricker.

Infrastructure Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, present in the hall at Saint-Hyacinthe as abuse was leveled at Trudeau, conceded, “There is a level of anxiety out there and we need to allow for these discussions to happen.”

But insiders say regardless of the insults, Trudeau intends to stick to his policy of avoiding public arguments.

The Liberals won a surprise victory in 2015 by mounting a massive campaign to register young and aboriginal voters and concede a similar effort will be needed this time.

The Liberals have a majority of just 11 in the 338-seat House of Commons and polls show they are only slightly ahead of the main opposition Conservative Party, led by Andrew Scheer.

“It’s going to be tight…the message to the troops is, there is no magic commercial advert that is going to win this campaign. Don’t rely on the prime minister to belt one out of the park during the debates,” said a third Liberal.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Alistair Bell)

Supreme Court justice Ginsburg ‘up and working’ after fall

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg participates in taking a new family photo with her fellow justices at the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 1, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

By Andrew Chung and Simon Thompson

WASHINGTON/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is already up and working in her hospital room, a day after breaking three ribs in a fall, her nephew said late on Thursday at the Hollywood premiere of a film about her life.

Ginsburg, a ground-breaking liberal jurist who at 85 is the oldest U.S. Supreme Court justice, was hospitalized on Thursday after falling at her office at the court, a court spokeswoman said.

“The last I heard she was up and working, of course, because what else would she be doing, and cracking jokes,” her nephew Daniel Stiepleman said at the premiere of the film “On the Basis of Sex”, about a gender-based discrimination case Ginsburg tried as a young lawyer in 1972.

“I can’t promise they were good jokes but they were jokes,” said Stiepleman, who wrote the script for the film with input from the justice herself.

Ginsburg, who made her name as an advocate for women’s rights, is one of four liberals sitting on the court, to which she was appointed in 1993 by then President Bill Clinton.

The court’s 5-4 conservative majority was restored last month when the Senate confirmed Republican President Donald Trump’s appointee Brett Kavanaugh after a contentious nomination process in which Kavanaugh denied a sexual assault allegation from his youth.

Ginsburg went home after the fall but experienced discomfort overnight and went to George Washington University Hospital on Thursday morning, court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said in a statement.

Tests showed Ginsburg fractured three ribs on her left side and she was admitted for observation and treatment, Arberg added. The court is due to hear its next arguments on Nov. 26.

If Ginsburg were unable to continue serving, Trump could replace her with a conservative, further shifting the court to the right. A potentially dominant 6-3 conservative majority would have major consequences for issues including abortion, the death penalty, voting rights, gay rights and religious liberty.

As the oldest justice, Ginsburg is closely watched for any signs of deteriorating health. She has bounced back from previous medical issues and has fallen twice before at her home, in 2012 and 2013, leading to rib injuries. She was treated in 1999 for colon cancer and again in 2009 for pancreatic cancer, but did not miss any argument sessions either time.

In 2014, doctors placed a stent in her right coronary artery to improve blood flow after she reported discomfort following routine exercise. She was released from a hospital the next day.

Trump went to the court on Thursday for a ceremony welcoming Kavanaugh to the nation’s highest court. Kavanaugh was sworn in to the lifetime job last month. The president sat with first lady Melania Trump at the front of the marble-walled courtroom near the justices’ mahogany bench, making no public remarks.

Some leading congressional Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and outspoken Trump ally Senator Lindsey Graham, attended. The event came a day after Trump fired Jeff Sessions as attorney general; Matthew Whitaker, who Trump named as Sessions’ interim replacement, participated.

CRITICAL COMMENTS

Ginsburg called Trump an egotistical “faker” when he was running for president in 2016, in an unusual foray into politics by a justice. Trump responded, saying her “mind is shot” and she should resign. Ginsburg later expressed regret, saying “judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office.”

She is a hero among many U.S. liberals, who revere her as “The Notorious R.B.G”, a nickname based on a late rap star. A documentary film about her, “RBG,” was released earlier this year, and the Hollywood biopic will be released on Christmas.

The director, Mimi Leder, called described the film as Ginsburg’s “origin story”, a term used in superhero movies.

“Our thoughts are with her tonight after her fall yesterday. We send her our love and pray for a speedy recovery. I have it on good word that she’s in great shape, and she is shooing the doctors out of her room so she can work,” Leder said at the premiere. She told Reuters her own information about Ginsburg’s health had come from Stiepleman.

Ginsburg has helped buttress equality rights during her time on the high court, including in sex discrimination cases.

Her career was shaped in part by discrimination she faced as a young lawyer in a predominantly male profession: she was one of just nine women at Harvard Law School in the 1950s, and later struggled to find a firm that would hire her.

“She was making mistakes, finding out who she was, had a very young family, her husband wasn’t very well,” actress Felicity Jones, who plays her in the film, told Reuters on the red carpet. “She was juggling a lot of difficult things at the same time but always (had) this absolute commitment to the law.”

Ginsburg voiced support for the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct after Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault by a university professor, saying that unlike in her youth, “women nowadays are not silent about bad behavior.”

Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation process convulsed the nation just weeks before Tuesday’s congressional elections in which Trump’s fellow Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives but expanded their majority in Senate.

On Wednesday, Trump credited the fight over confirming Kavanaugh, who was strongly opposed by Democrats, for the gains in the Senate.

(Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and Lisa Richwine; Writing by Andrew Chung and Peter Graff; Editing by Frances Kerry and Will Dunham)

Protesters force UC Berkeley to cancel far-right speaker’s speech

vandalized bankf of america at scene of "protest"

(Reuters) – Hundreds of protesters at the University of California at Berkeley on Wednesday smashed windows, set fires and clashed with police as they forced a right-wing speaker to cancel his appearance at the liberal-leaning institution.

Two hours before far-right Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos was to give a speech at the student union, protesters tossed metal barricades and rocks through the building’s windows and set a light generator on fire near the entrance, footage from news outlets showed.

Police ordered protesters to disperse as the school put the campus on lockdown. Protesters also tossed bricks and fireworks at police in riot gear who fired rubber pellets back at the crowd, according to SFGate.com, a news outlet in San Francisco.

“We shut down the event. It was great. Mission accomplished,” a protester told CNN.

Some 150 “masked agitators” were responsible for the violence during the otherwise largely peaceful protest of about 1,500 people, the university said in a statement, noting that the school “is proud of its history and legacy as home of the Free Speech Movement” in the 1960s.

President Donald Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, previously headed Breitbart News and CNN reported that many of the protesters voiced opposition to the Republican president.

Many of Trump’s executive orders and proposed policies, including his suspension of the U.S. refugee program and temporary ban on travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries, have been met by largely peaceful protests that have drawn tens of thousands of people across the United States.

One protester at Berkeley held a sign that said “No Safe Space for Racists” while other protesters danced to hip hop music, footage from a Facebook Live feed showed.

Protesters later marched along streets near the campus where some smashed storefront windows and car windshields while clashing with police, the feed showed.

Yiannopoulos, whose account on Twitter was suspended last year after he was accused of participating in the online harassment of an African-American actress, criticized “the Left”, saying in a statement it was “absolutely terrified of free speech and will do literally anything to shut it down.”

He also said on Fox News that he was evacuated by police after protesters began throwing rocks and other objects at the building.

“Obviously it’s a liberal campus so they hate any libertarians or conservatives who dare to express an opinion on their campuses,” he said. “They particularly don’t like me.”

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles, Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Sandra Maler and Nick Macfie)