WASHINGTON, DC – Democrats running for president are compiling a secret list of activist judges for the Supreme Court and lower courts, and the Judicial Crisis Network is challenging Joe Biden and other candidates to follow President Donald Trump’s lead in publicly releasing the list, so citizens will know what they will be voting for in 2020.
When running for president, Donald Trump released a list of federal and state judges from which he would choose Supreme Court justices. He expanded that list prior to the election to add additional names. He chose Justice Neil Gorsuch from that list, and a year later chose Justice Brett Kavanaugh from an expanded version of the list.
Then-candidate Trump explained he was releasing the list so the public could vet his potential picks, and would know precisely what sort of judges and justices they would get if they elected him president.
President Trump has racked up an impressive record keeping his promise, having confirmed over 100 new federal judges, including over 40 to the federal appeals courts and two to the Supreme Court.
In response, liberal Democrats are developing their own list. But unlike President Trump, they refuse to release their list to the public. Conservatives contend that Democrats are keeping the list secret because it contains a who’s-who of judicial activists who believe in inventing new constitutional rights like taxpayer-funded abortion that are not found anywhere in the Constitution, and records of ignoring the plain wording of laws they do not personally like, or constitutional rights they disfavor like religious liberty or the Second Amendment right to bear arms.
The Judicial Crisis Network (JCN) launched a $1.1 million ad campaign on Tuesday informing voters that Democrats will not release their judges list, pressuring Democrats to do so as their presidential candidates debate on television for the first time this week. JCN also created a new website to build awareness on the issue, ReleaseTheList.com.
“The radical left smeared Judge Kavanaugh,” the ad begins. It quotes President Trump, who explained of these attacks on Kavanaugh, “They tried to ruin his life, all in pursuit of political domination and control.”
“Now the same radicals want to pack the Court,” the narrator continues.
“They’ve built a secret list of judges that they won’t show anyone,” the ad goes on. “What are they hiding?”
JCN Chief Counsel Carrie Severino said in a statement:
President Trump was open and honest with the American people and has kept his promise. He released his list of judges, but Joe Biden and other Democrats running for president have yet to reveal theirs. Democratic candidates and liberal groups are campaigning to pack the courts with liberal judges, while keeping their list secret. Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden and all Democratic presidential candidates should stop hiding and release their list of potential Supreme Court nominees so the American people can judge for themselves.
Judicial appointments are one of President Trump’s strongest political issues, beginning when he promised to nominate federal judges and Supreme Court justices like the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who interpret federal law according to the words enacted by elected leaders, and who interpret the Constitution according to its original public meaning.
Voters referred President Trump over Hillary Clinton on this issue by a 16-point margin of 57 to 41, and the Supreme Court was the top issue for 21 percent of voters in 2016.
The ad campaign will run throughout the Democrat presidential debates this week.
Ken Klukowski is senior legal analyst for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @kenklukowski
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