NEW YORK — Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump has released a list of the twenty-one individuals he will consider nominating to the United States Supreme Court should he be elected president. Among the names on the list is Judge William “Bill” Pryor, Jr., a native of Mobile.
Pryor is an icon in conservative legal circles and has already enjoyed a distinguished legal career, including stints as Alabama’s deputy attorney general and attorney general (succeeding now-U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions) before being nominated to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals by President George W. Bush in 2003.
Senate Democrats initially filibustered Pryor’s nomination and criticized him for being an “extremist” after he referred to the Supreme Court as “nine octogenarian lawyers” and called Roe v. Wade the “worst abomination in the history of constitutional law” and “a constitutional right to murder an unborn child.”
President Bush went on to install Pryor as a federal judge through a recess appointment. He was eventually confirmed by a vote of 53-45.
As a federal judge, Pryor has upheld voter ID laws (Common Cause/Georgia v. Billups) and argued against ObamaCare’s contraceptive mandate.
The Trump campaign said the individuals named on the list were chosen “first and foremost, based on constitutional principles, with infput from respected conservative leaders.”
“We have a very clear choice in this election,” said Mr. Trump. “The freedoms we cherish and the constitutional values and principles our country was founded on are in jeopardy. The responsibility is greater than ever to protect and uphold these freedoms and I will appoint justices, who like Justice Scalia, will protect our liberty with the highest regard for the Constitution. This list is definitive and I will choose only from it in picking future Justices of the United States Supreme Court. I would like to thank the Federalist Society, The Heritage Foundation and the many other individuals who helped in composing this list of twenty-one highly respected people who are the kind of scholars that we need to preserve the very core of our country, and make it greater than ever before.”
Joining Judge prior on the list is Justice Don Willett of the Texas Supreme Court. Justice Willett will be the keynote speaker at the Alabama Policy Institute’s annual dinner in Birmingham Oct. 27th at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex.
The full list of the twenty-one individuals Mr. Trump will consider for the High Court is below:
1. Keith Blackwell
2. Charles Canady
3. Steven Colloton
4. Allison Eid
5. Neil Gorsuch
6. Raymond Gruender
7. Thomas Hardiman
8. Raymond Kethledge
9. Joan Larsen
10. Mike Lee
11. Thomas Lee
12. Edward Mansfield
13. Federico Moreno
14. William Pryor
15. Margaret A. Ryan
16. Amul Thapar
17. Timothy Tymkovich
18. David Stras
19. Diane Sykes
20. Don Willett
21. Robert Young
