The Case for Justice Ted Cruz - WSJ
By: Donald B. Stenberg (WSJ)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
President Trump’s latest list of prospective Supreme Court nominees includes three U.S. senators: Josh Hawley of Missouri, Ted Cruz of Texas and Tom Cotton of Arkansas. This shows the president understands the need to appoint constitutional conservatives whose views won’t “evolve” once they are on the court.
The best way to do that is to nominate someone who has demonstrated that he won’t back down in the face of political threats (such as those made by Sens. Chuck Schumer and Sheldon Whitehouse earlier this year) and who has demonstrated that his principles are more important than being well thought of by the media or the politically correct.
Where should the president look to find such people? They can be found in the ranks of lawyers who have gone through the fire of political campaigns, been publicly attacked by the media and liberal opponents, and have held true to their beliefs through it all. Messrs. Hawley, Cruz and Cotton clearly meet this test.
The response to this suggestion will be that it would “politicize the court.” Yet the Supreme Court is already highly political. This year the court rewrote civil-rights law (Bostock v. Clayton County) and prevented this administration from terminating an unlawful order issued by a prior administration (Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California).
There is substantial precedent for justices to have held elective office before appointment to the Supreme Court. These include Chief Justices John Jay (president of the Second Continental Congress), John Marshall (Virginia delegate and U.S. representative), William Howard Taft (president) and Earl Warren (California attorney general and governor), as well as several associate justices.
The president’s inclusion of Sens. Hawley, Cruz and Cotton on his Supreme Court list shows that he understands the need for his next nominee to be a person who has demonstrated in the crucible of public fire that his judicial philosophy won’t wilt under political or media pressure.
—Mr. Stenberg is a former Nebraska attorney general and author of “Eavesdropping on Lucifer.”
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