What Would Clinton Win Mean For SCOTUS?

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Publish Date:
August 11, 2016
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Bloomberg
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Summary

A left-leaning court with at least one appointment from potential President Hillary Clinton would mean a big shift in areas of the law such as voting rights and gun control, but panelists making predictions at the American Bar Association annual meeting doubted the new court would overturn major precedents.

Professors speculated about the future of the court Aug. 5 in light of recent polls putting Clinton ahead of her Republication rival Donald Trump by as many as 15 points.

If Clinton wins and fills the vacancy left by the Feb. 13 death of Justice Antonin Scalia, it will be the first time in more than 45 years that a majority of the justices will be appointed by a Democrat, Stanford Law professor Pamela Karlan said at the panel, “The Roberts Court 2015–2016: A Tragic Death, Its Impact, and the Future of the Roberts Court.”

But Karlan and her co-panelist Vikram David Amar, of the University of Illinois College of Law, said the new left-leaning court is unlikely to overturn recent precedent outright.

Both Karlan and Amar predicted that President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, will eventually get on the high court if Clinton is victorious in November.

While Karlan thought it extremely unlikely that Garland will be confirmed during a lame duck session, she thought it probable that Clinton will re-nominate the now chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

In a separate ABA panel on Aug. 6, “The 2016 Presidential Election, U.S. Supreme Court Nominations, and the Current Supreme Court Vacancy,” Karlan noted that the biggest changes in the new court should Clinton be elected might be no changes at all.

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