With the vacancy on the Supreme Court unlikely to be filled before the end of the year, and with Donald Trump likely to be the Republican nominee for president, one way to fill the highest court’s vacancy with a superb jurist and reduce tensions within the Republican Party would be for the Donald to announce that he plans to appoint Ted Cruz to the Supreme Court.
Ted Cruz is a smart guy and right on most of the issues. He’s solid on abortion and the Second Amendment, and we wouldn’t have to worry about where he would come down on Obamacare and “gay marriage.” Also, he is known for his keen intellect and prodigious memory.
Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who is no Republican, said that as a student “Cruz was off-the-charts brilliant.”
Cruz also had a distinguished career in the legal profession. He served as a law clerk for Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and he was Solicitor General for the State of Texas from 2003 to 2008 and as such argued before the Supreme Court nine times.
Ironically, these characteristics which make him ideal for the SCOTUS mean that he was never suited to run for president. His demeanor is one of a jurist, not of a politician. Every time he speaks to an audience, it sounds like he is arguing a case in court. Unlike Trump, who sounds like a regular guy, he lacks the common man’s jargon and cadence. If somehow Cruz manages to defeat Donald Trump for the Republican Party nomination, his inability to connect with ordinary people would probably cost him the general election, even if the Democrats never make an issue of his birth in Canada and his problem with the Natural-Born Citizen Clause of the Constitution, which they are likely to do.
Unfortunately, the raucous Republican Party debates and the insults traded between Cruz and Trump have left a bad taste in the mouths of both candidates’ supporters. Many Cruz supporters now hate Trump almost as much as they hate Hillary Clinton, and Trump supporters feel the same way about Cruz. If Trump is the Party nominee, he needs to extend an olive branch to those who backed Cruz in order to gain their votes. What better way of doing that then to put Ted Cruz on the Supreme Court?
It won’t be easy. Recently, Cruz and Trump have been directing campaign attacks at each other’s wives in a scurrilous way. Not too long ago, such tactics would have been considered beneath the dignity of any Republican. Now, it will be difficult for these men to sit together in the same room.
Still, it needs to be done. The Supreme Court has become immensely powerful and can now repeal or make legislation quicker, more effectively, and more permanently than Congress. In Congress, with self-preening committees in both houses, lobbyists whispering in congressmen’s ears, and the leftwing media making demands, the only things that get passed are big-spending ten-thousand-page omnibus bills that no one has read and no one is happy with. By contrast, a single justice on the Supreme Court in a 5-4 vote can make “gay marriage” or Obamacare the law of the land. It is too dangerous to take a chance on another unknown factor like David Souter (a.k.a. Barney Fife) or a switch-hitter like Anthony Kennedy. Just imagine the next 5 or 10 years with five solid left-wing justices on the Court and what will happen to the Second Amendment, private property rights, free speech, etc. In a decade’s time, the U.S. will be no better than any other corrupt third-world wasteland.
To prevent such a disaster, we need a reliable constitutionalist in the mold of Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, or Antonin Scalia on the court, and Ted Cruz seems to be such a man.
The first step will be trying to convince Donald Trump. But that is probably not such a high hurdle. Trump does not seem like a man who holds grudges, and, he can probably be persuaded of the benefits of appointing Cruz. Some of his advisors can make this suggestion.
The second step will be convincing Cruz. That actually might be harder, because his supporters want nothing less than Cruz as president. Still, I think a position on the high court would be attractive to him, and he can see the long-term benefits from such an appointment. After-all, we have an election and a country at stake.
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