It’s one of the loudest rallying cries this election year: the person we elect to be president next month will likely get to choose multiple U.S. Supreme Court justices over the course of his or her term, including the justice who will succeed Antonin Scalia, the conservative firebrand who died in February. U.S. Senate Republicans have since blocked President Obama’s efforts to appoint a moderate justice, and Sen. John McCain has since said they would do the same to Hillary Clinton if she’s elected.
It’s a scary scenario, which could prolong the counterproductive, often-split eight-member court — and what would happen as justices retire is equally as scary.
To Democrats, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s potential U.S. Supreme Court picks are bone-chilling.
The court, of course, helps set the national tone, keeps Congress and the president’s administration in check and, in recent years, has made major decisions on same-sex marriage, health care and other issues.
One of those Trump picks in particular may make Florida Democrats dread a Trump victory: Florida Supreme Court Justice Charles Canady, a former Congressman from Lakeland who these days is often found in the minority in cases challenging draconian laws passed by an overwhelmingly conservative state Legislature.
Damien Filer, political director of the left-leaning group Progress Florida, told CL in an email that Canady “has consistently stood up for corporations over consumers, seniors and the United States Constitution.”
Originally appointed to the state supreme court by Charlie Crist in 2008, the Lakeland native is currently up for reelection on a statewide ballot.
With those two things in mind — the specter of Trump appointing him to SCOTUS and his seeking another term in Florida’s highest court — we figured it was time for a refresher on his (ultra-conservative) resume.
1) In the ’90s, while in Congress, he helped create the dubious dysphemism “partial-birth” abortion. It’s a phrase capable of inciting outrage among even the most callous — and that’s exactly what it’s meant to do. It refers to a method of abortion that’s used well into a pregnancy and in, one would think and hope, extreme and uncommon circumstances. And, yes, it’s gruesome. But abortion rights advocates say limiting access to the procedure is part of a bigger effort to outlaw abortion entirely.
2) Also during his tenure in Congress, he helped lead the effort to impeach former President Bill Clinton. His work is a reminder of how long the right’s aggressive effort to take down the Clintons has been plodding along.
3) His positions on women’s autonomy haven’t exactly evolved over the decades. As a justice, he disagreed with most of his colleagues on whether to take up a case challenging a 24-hour wait period for women seeking abortions. Prior to that dissent, he had disagreed with the court’s decision to block the law while deciding whether to review the case against it. The law is similar to Texas legislation that was struck down by the current U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-3 decision. Opponents say the waiting period represents just another hardship for women who live far away from abortion providers and have trouble taking time off work from or traveling to their appointments. They say it’s also another effort to chip away at abortion rights.
4) His life-at-all-costs views don’t extend to the incarcerated. Canady was the sole dissenter to his colleagues’ recent decision that a death penalty sentence can only be handed down by a unanimous jury vote. Many accused of crimes are wrongfully imprisoned or have a mental illness, and allowing the death penalty to be approved by anything less than a unanimous vote would up the odds that the state will kill more of them.
The scary part for progressive voters?
He isn’t even among the most conservative judges on Trump’s list.
“While Charles Canady is considered the most conservative justice on the Florida Supreme Court, he’s in the middle of the pack when you look at who Donald Trump would nominate to serve on the highest court in the land,” Filer said. “A Trump court would make America frightening again for women who care about access to reproductive health care, for same-sex couples who want to marry or for any citizen trying to stand up to special interests.”
