by Frank Holmes, reporter
At first glance it would seem as though Donald Trump’s longest-lasting legacy could be the economy or the Wall.
While those accomplishments are tremendous, he could be remembered for something entirely different: He’s replaced judicial activists with actual judges who respect the Constitution.
One liberal judge even took notice and said that President Trump’s wide-reaching effort to remake the bench sent a “shock wave” through the courts.
Trump has appointed one out of every four U.S. circuit judges, according to The Washington Post.
He appointed an incredible 187 judges to federal courts last year alone.
“President Trump continues to deliver on his promise to nominate principled judges to the federal bench,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List.
The judges Trump has placed on the bench are “exceptional men and women who will uphold the Constitution and restore legislative power to the American people,” she said.
Already, Trump has appointed 50 judges to the U.S. circuit courts, almost as many as Barack Obama and Bill Clinton combined.
Every judge serves for life, and the average judge is younger than 50 years old.
This tidal wave of conservative judges is drowning the black-robed old boys’ network, which critics say used the court to promote a liberal political agenda.
The most important thing Trump has done may be to “stop what would otherwise have been a 12- or 16-year stretch of straight liberal appointments—a true generational shift—if a Hillary Clinton presidency had succeeded Obama’s,” wrote Walter Olson of the Cato Institute.
But he’s not just on defense. Republicans under Trump are taking the fight to the other side.
Trump’s appointees have flipped three U.S. Appeals Courts — the Second, Third, and Eleventh — from Democrat to Republican-controlled.
And if Trump is re-elected, he may take home the biggest prize so far: the West Coast’s ultra-liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
A “reform” that got rammed through in 1978 let President Jimmy Carter appoint all 10 nominees, and Republicans have never turned the balance.
The Ninth Circuit — which hears cases from nine states and Guam, and oversees almost 20 percent of the whole U.S. population — earned its reputation as the most left-wing appeals court in the USA.
This is the same appeals court that ruled the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional, because the words “under God” violate the “separation of church and state.”
It struck down President Trump’s so-called “Muslim ban,” saying it was an example of illegal discrimination, even though President Obama presided over an identical program.
It ruled that President Trump had no right to repeal the DACA rule that President Obama instated of his own power.
The president said the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is “broken and unfair.”
It just shows everyone how broken and unfair our Court System is when the opposing side in a case (such as DACA) always runs to the 9th Circuit and almost always wins before being reversed by higher courts.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018
Trump decided not to get mad; instead, he’s almost made the court even.
When President Trump took office, there were 11 more liberals than conservatives on the Ninth Circuit. That lead has been cut down to just three.
“Trump has effectively flipped the circuit,” said Circuit Judge Milan Smith Jr., who was appointed by George W. Bush. “You will see a sea change in the Ninth Circuit on day-to-day decisions.”
The new blood is already upsetting the old, leftist orthodoxy by ruling for the president on issues like banning abortion provider Planned Parenthood from receiving federal Title X money.
One older judge, who’d gotten used to the court’s liberal ways, told the Los Angeles Times, “Ten new people at once sends a shock wave through the system.”
Conservatives say it’s about time they got a jolt.
Carrie Severino of the Judicial Crisis Network says “there probably is a shock wave going through the court, but it’s because it’s the first time the rule of law has been cited in the Ninth Circuit for decades.”
The lower courts are an important battleground, because “seismic changes in the law are not usually the result of a single, decisive decision by the Supreme Court,” wrote John Hinderaker, president of the Center of the American Experiment. “Rather, the groundwork is laid over time, in a variety of cases arising in … appellate courts.”
Long after the president is gone, the federal bench end the level of legislating from the bench that set off America’s culture wars.
“In terms of quality and quantity, we are going to be just about number one by the time we finish — number one of any president, any administration.” President Trump told Fox News.
That’s one promise he’s fulfilled.
Frank Holmes is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”