Possible Ginsburg replacement may be narrowed down to three

Leading Trump choices are two women and one South Asian

Since Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died Friday night, President Donald Trump has largely winnowed a list of dozens of potential replacements down to three frontrunners: Appeals court judges Amy Coney Barrett, Barbara Lagoa and Amul Thapar.

Barrett, Lagoa and Thapar all appeared on a long list of possible high-court picks that Trump updated earlier this month. And Barrett and Thapar were among the nominees whom Trump considered before selecting Brett Kavanaugh for the court in 2018.

The three judges also have something else in common: They’re young, and have the prospect of serving on the top U.S. court for decades. Trump will also see inherent political advantages in the nomination of each.

The president said Saturday he’s likely to select a woman for his third top court pick, and complimented Barrett and Lagoa. Amy Coney Barrett, 48 A favorite of social conservatives, Barrett was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 2017 after a tough confirmation battle. Trump has said privately before that he was saving Barrett as a nominee to replace Ginsburg, further suggesting he’s leaning toward picking a woman as his next nominee.

Senate Democrats argued that Barrett’s Catholic faith would sway her legal analysis, especially on issues like abortion. “Dogma lives loudly within you,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, said in a widely reported exchange that enraged conservative groups.

Barrett opposes abortion, a key test for several Republican senators, but said in a 2013 speech at the University of Notre Dame that it was “very unlikely” the Supreme Court would ever overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that established a legal right to an abortion in the U.S.

“The fundamental element, that the woman has a right to choose abortion, will probably stand,” she said, according to an account of her remarks in the student newspaper. “The controversy right now is about funding. It’s a question of whether abortions will be publicly or privately funded.” Barbara Lagoa, 52 Barrett was initially seen as the most likely pick but by Saturday the stock of Lagoa, a Cuban-American from Florida, was rising in the White House, according to people familiar with the fast-moving process.

The Miami-born Lagoa has seen a quick ascent. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Trump ally, appointed her to the Supreme Court of Florida in 2019 — she was the first Cuban-American woman to serve on the court, and is bilingual — before Trump nominated her to the Eleventh Circuit in September a year ago. She was confirmed in December. She served in private practice and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney before being appointed to Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal by then-Governor Jeb Bush.

Lagoa’s legal bona fides hold some political appeal for Trump as the election bears down — a woman of Hispanic heritage from Florida is a trifecta of forces that will help make or break Trump’s fate this fall. He’s trailing Biden in Florida and trailing widely among women, but polls show he’s doing better among Hispanic voters than he did in 2016. Lagoa’s parents fled Cuba in 1966. “I owe my parents everything,” she said in her 2019 confirmation hearing.

During that hearing, Feinstein questioned her over a series of rulings that overturned damages awarded to employees who’d alleged retaliation and discrimination. She replied that she was following the letter of the law in each case. “To me, the term ‘judicial activism’ means that a judge is reaching a result based on the judge’s own personal preference. And that is antithetical to what I believe a judge should be,” she later said. Amul Thapar, 51 Thapar is the first South Asian Article III judge. He previously served on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky and as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky. Thapar has ties to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, who personally introduced him and praised him in his 2017 confirmation hearing.

In that hearing Thapar stressed that he believed “judicial independence means fidelity to the Constitution and the rule of law.”

Like Lagoa, Thapar’s legal credentials may be bolstered by the inherently political timing of Trump’s appointment. He was born in Michigan and raised in Ohio, two battleground states. His status as a trailblazing South Asian justice comes also as Trump and Mike Pence run against Democrats Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.