Democrat Senator Kamala Harris is riding high.
Many in the media and in the Democrat Party believe she is the candidate that will defeat Donald Trump in 2020.
But that all changed when she suffered the most humiliating defeat of her life.
Donald Trump won the 2016 election in large part because Evangelical Christians trusted him to nominate pro-life, conservative justices to the bench.
Trump followed through.
While his nominations of Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch received all the attention, Trump reshaped the district and circuit courts with record numbers of conservative judicial appointments.
One court Trump had a mandate to remake was the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Known as the most liberal court in America, the Ninth Circuit was where Democrats would run to file court challenges to Trump’s executive actions.
The partisan Democrats that sat on the Ninth Circuit would obediently grant injunctions staying Trump’s orders – like the travel ban and changes to asylum rules – to gum up the gears of Trump’s agenda while the cases made their way to the Supreme Court.
Trump had a mandate to remake the court through filling vacancies and last year he nominated three strong conservatives to the bench.
But they were caught up in the Democrats’ obstruction tactics and if the Senate were to confirm them, it would have to be this year.
In past years, Presidents have negotiated with the home state senators of judicial nominees to get their approval.
And reports surfaced that the White House counsel – without Trump’s knowledge – was letting California Democrats Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein choose left-wing nominees for the Ninth Circuit.
The story was that the White House counsel’s office was willing to trade left-wing nominees to a lower court in exchange for Harris and Feinstein – both of whom sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee – would ease the confirmation of a future Supreme Court nominee.
Conservatives could not believe the White House counsel would go behind Trump’s back to cut a deal with Democrats to block Trump from appointing conservative judges in exchange for a promise about the next Supreme Court nomination neither Harris nor Feinstein ever intended to keep.
Thankfully, conservatives were able to sound the alarm in time.
The White House announced that Trump re-nominated Daniel Collins and Kenneth Lee as well as selected Daniel Bress to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Harris and Feinstein were furious.
They erupted in outrage that Trump stood with his base instead of kowtowing to their demands.
“We are deeply disappointed that the White House has chosen to re-nominate Daniel Collins and Kenneth Lee to the 9th Circuit,” Senators Harris and Feinstein wrote in a joint statement. “We made clear our opposition to these individuals and told the White House we wanted to work together to come to consensus on a new package of nominees.”
This is a disastrous defeat for Harris.
She is running for President.
Democrats want to use the court to tie up Trump’s agenda so contenders like Harris can claim Trump is a failure that can’t get anything done.
But by remaking the Ninth Circuit, Trump is cutting down on the Democrats’ ability to “judge shop” and find political activists that will hand down lawless rulings and block Trump’s initiatives.
We will keep you up to date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
