More Trump 9th Circuit Appointees Confirmed! Liberal Tears Flow!
Trump’s 10th nominee to the now-formerly very liberal Federal 9th Circuit Court Of Appeals was confirmed by the Senate earlier this week. After the recent confirmations of Danielle Hunsaker and Patrick Bumatay (the first Filipino and first openly gay judge on the 9th), Lawrence VanDyke will be sworn in next month.
President Donald Trump has ushered in the end of an era — no more will liberals dominate the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and use the federal appellate court as a rubber stamp for defeating pro-life legislation and pushing abortion on demand.
Today the U.S. Senate voted to confirm Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lawrence VanDyke to serve on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. President Trump nominated VanDyke in September.
Lawrence VanDyke graduated from Harvard Law School with high honors. Prior to his nomination to the 9th Circuit, VanDyke served as deputy assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice. He has extensive experience serving as solicitor general in both Montana and Nevada, as well as in private practice.
Leading pro-life groups celebrated his confirmation.
“We congratulate Lawrence VanDyke on his confirmation. He will be an outstanding addition to the 9th Circuit,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. “His distinguished record makes him highly qualified to serve on the federal bench. He is a committed and strong constitutionalist who will uphold the values and deeply held beliefs of our nation. VanDyke joins the ranks of over 150 judges confirmed to the court by President Trump – judges of the highest caliber with respect for the Constitution and the rights of all people. We are very pleased to see him confirmed.”
Crazed liberals are, of course, in an uproar, as the once wacked out liberal 9th circuit is turning less and less wacked out with every Trump nomination.
The far left Slate.com writes:
VanDyke has a long record as an anti-LGBTQ activist. He wrote in 2004 that marriage equality “will hurt families, and consequentially children and society.” As the solicitor general of Montana, he advocated for the state to join two briefs alleging that legal recognition of same-sex relationships would harm children. The first claimed that prohibiting same-sex marriage promoted “optimal childrearing” because same-sex couples “cannot provide” the optimal “family structure.” And the second asserted that states “may rationally conclude” that “it is better” for parents to have a “biological” connection to their children. (The Supreme Court disagreed, ruling that a same-sex marriage ban “humiliates” the children of gay couples.) In 2010, VanDyke also filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to rule that student groups at public universities have a First Amendment right to discriminate against LGBTQ students.
In light of this record, the ABA expressed concern over whether “VanDyke would be fair to persons who are gay, lesbian, or otherwise part of the LGBTQ community.” During VanDyke’s confirmation hearing, Missouri GOP Sen. Josh Hawley asked him if the ABA was right to worry. Do you believe, Hawley asked sympathetically, that you would treat LGBTQ litigants unfairly? “I do not believe that,” VanDyke said. Then he started crying. “It is a fundamental belief of mine that all people are created in the image of God,” he insisted. “They should all be treated with dignity and respect.” The victimizer had become the victim.
VanDyke, a longtime member of the Federalist Society, brought that group’s priorities to the Montana solicitor general’s office. He threw the state into a case challenging a federal law banning those under 21 from buying handguns, arguing that the ban “probably does violate the original meaning of the Second Amendment” because “18-year-olds were part of the ‘militia.’ ” He also defended a bizarre Montana statute that attempted to nullify federal law by declaring Montana-made firearms “not subject to federal law or regulation.” In internal emails, VanDyke acknowledged that his argument may not pass “the straight-face test.” Unsurprisingly, VanDyke also co-authored a brief defending 20-week abortion bans and urging the Supreme Court to reconsider Roe v. Wade wholesale.
It turns out the American Bar Association has basically turned into a bunch of partisan ideologues.
Gabby Giffords and her anti gun organization don’t like VanDyke either, because he believes in that whole 2nd Amendment thing. Huff Po reports:
Giffords’ group claims his “dangerous positions on firearm policy and fealty to a gun-lobby agenda, alone, render him unfit to serve on the federal bench.”
“Giffords Law Center is compelled to warn this committee about VanDyke’s nomination because of his uniquely troublesome record,” says a forthcoming letter to the chairman and ranking member on the committee, obtained by HuffPost. “VanDyke’s dangerous commitment to gun lobby groups that oppose all firearm regulations and his advocacy for extreme, unconstitutional, and legally unsupported views on gun policy and the Second Amendment disqualify him for a life-tenured seat on the federal bench.”
The gun safety organization raises several concerns with VanDyke’s nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
In his 2014 bid for solicitor general of Montana, VanDyke claimed that all “gun control laws are misdirected” and vowed to oppose basic gun safety measures, such as tighter background checks. As solicitor general, he vigorously defended a state law that purported to exempt all firearms and ammunition manufactured and kept in Montana from federal law or regulation. When that law was struck down as unconstitutional, VanDyke responded by petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court for a review and arguing that the court should revisit precedents on congressional powers to invalidate the federal gun laws Montana had already chosen to disregard, including restrictions on machine guns, silencers and short-barreled rifles.
The “Coalition to stop gun violence” also chimed in:
“The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence strongly opposes the nomination of VanDyke to the Ninth Circuit. In the words of the American Bar Association, VanDyke has shown himself to be lazy, arrogant, an ideologue, and not qualified for the position for which he has been nominated.
“Lawrence VanDyke’s own words have indicated that he is unable to serve as a fair and impartial justice on the issue of guns and gun violence prevention. The answers that he chose in the 2014 Montana Candidate Questionnaire from the National Rifle Association (NRA) paint a troubling picture. VanDyke selected boxes that stated all ‘gun laws are misdirected,’ that he would oppose any attempt at universal background checks, and that he would work to repeal restrictions on carrying guns in banks, government buildings, college campuses, and bars.
“VanDyke is not shy about expressing his impartiality when it comes to gun cases. He suspended his NRA membership so he won’t have to recuse himself in cases pertaining to the gun lobby and even goes as far to write in a private email, ‘We want to be on the record as on the side of gun rights (and the NRA).’
“VanDyke is incapable of serving as an impartial justice and his nomination to this extremely important seat should be voted down by all Senators who value the impartiality of our judicial system.”
Back in May, Daily Beast writer Eleanor Clift whined that Trump’s judicial nominees were part of a “HOSTILE TAKEOVER”:
Young, mostly male, and overwhelmingly white judges appointed by President Trump are on the cusp of remaking the once reliably liberal Ninth Circuit of the Court of Appeals, the nation’s highest court below the Supreme Court.
Now the Senate has been racing to give lifetime seats on its bench to Trump judges whose pro-business jurisprudence and regressive social views are out of step with much of the country, including Democrats and younger Americans.
“The Ninth has been the circuit that immigrants, women, people of color, public health and safety advocates look to for resolution of critical issues,” says Nan Aron, founder of Alliance for Justice, a liberal advocacy group. “Because of the court’s reputation, Donald Trump and his ilk have had their knives out for the Ninth Circuit.”
When Trump took office, the Ninth Circuit had 19 Democratic appointees, only 6 Republican appointees, and four vacancies. In the last ten days, the U.S. Senate confirmed two Trump nominees, Kenneth Lee and Daniel Collins, with a third, Daniel Bress, awaiting a hearing Wednesday morning. If he is confirmed as expected by the Judiciary committee, Trump will have appointed seven judges to the Ninth Circuit, bringing the circuit close to a tipping point if, as Trump has often said, each judge rules in line with the views of the party that nominated them. There is one remaining vacancy, with eight of the Democratic-appointed judges eligible for senior status, which they are unlikely to take given the political stakes and as the odds of a panel of judges now skewing Republican keep going up.
Figures. The left is deeply concerned that judges who aren’t unhinged liberal activists and actually care about the rule of law and Constitutional rights are being seated on benches across the country. You know you’re doing something right when you’ve managed to tick off all of the far left fake news media sites and the anti gun groups.
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