Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) urged President Donald Trump to revamp his process of selecting Supreme Court nominees after warning that some conservative voters have expressed deep disappointment with recent decisions by some of the president’s judicial picks.
Hawley told Politico in an interview that religious conservatives are now “very depressed” following the Supreme Court’s recent run of left-leaning rulings, with the GOP senator singling out a June 15 high court decision expanding the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s ban on sex discrimination in hiring beyond biologically-determined sex, to also cover sexual orientation and gender identity.
The 6–3 decision by the Supreme Court in the Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia case (pdf) carried an additional cultural charge because it was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump pick. Conservatives widely objected to the ruling, leading some to question their support for Trump, who has made the confirmation of 200 federal judges, including two Supreme Court justices, a big part of his reelection platform, in line with the Republican goal of filling every appeals court opening by the end of the year.
“The whole point of the Federalist Society judicial project, the whole point of electing Trump to implement it, was to deliver Supreme Court victories to social conservatives,” Varad Mehta, a conservative writer, wrote in a tweet following the ruling. “If they can’t deliver anything that basic, there’s no point for either. The damage is incalculable.”
Christian Conservative Coalition 