For those who are not aware, recently, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement from the Supreme Court. His impending retirement is a really big deal for a few reasons. For starters, retirement from the Supreme Court is unusual, for the most part, justices will stay on the court up until their death. The second reason being that Kennedy was a more moderate member of the court, and with the current situation in the US government, he was a crucial member of the court in terms of balance.
Right now the Supreme Court, the ideology overall is more tilted to the right of the political spectrum. President Trump has also already had the chance to nominate a justice for the Supreme Court as well: Neil Gorsuch, who leans conservative on the court's current political spectrum. Trump has been able to nominate two Supreme Court justices during his presidency. This is very influential in terms of the court makeup for the next 20 years at least, because as you may know Supreme Court justices do not have term limits, therefore, they can stay on the court for as long as they choose to.
Trump's new nominee Brett Kavanaugh, while not as conservative in ideology as Gorsuch, is still farther right of the spectrum to be considered moderate. This is not to say that Kavanaugh is not qualified to be a justice on the Supreme Court because his resume is impressive. He is currently a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and he was also the Staff Secretary for the White House during the Bush presidency.
While he is more than qualified to be a Supreme Court Justice, there are better options in terms of picking someone who is less right of the spectrum to balance the court ideology. This leads to the argument that overall, the Supreme Court should have no political bias whatsoever to make decisions and only base decisions off of what the Constitution permits. This is almost impossible to do though because everyone has a bias, whether it be political or not to think a certain manner.
Brett Kavanaugh has been very open about his political views as well. In a decision made on the DC Court of Appeals, he made a dissenting statement on abortion rights saying, "reasonable regulations that do not impose an undue burden." Now, while he has also said that abortion will never be overturned, this statement is harmful to access for women. While many believe that abortion may never be overturned, there is no law stating that regulations can be placed on them to make it more difficult for women to access them. Having someone with that viewpoint can influence the way in which states pass laws regarding limitations to abortion.
Kavanaugh, as a new possible member of the US Supreme Court, will definitely influence the court for years down the road. He will also most probably be the next member of the Supreme Court because of the process in which justices are nominated. For example, all of the hearings that they go through are usually just formalities and do not really influence them becoming members or not. So with this in mind, I will say that it is important to keep the First Amendment and freedom of speech in mind in the coming years of the rest of Trump's presidency. Remember that if you have a problem with something in government to write to your local political leaders, or protest because your voice will be heard.
