Washington Times: Trump’s judges leave impact on abortion, guns, election and administrative law
This excerpt is from a piece that originally ran on May 20, 2024.
Jake Faleschini, legal director of state courts at the progressive Alliance for Justice, said it is not just the number of Trump judges who were placed on the bench, but their ideology that’s led to their rulings impacting every area of the law — and in his view, the decisions have had a negative affect.
“There are decisions the Supreme Court and Trump judges have made that influence your walk down the street every day,” Mr. Faleschini said, adding that they have ruled on “everything from abuse of government authority, age discrimination, criminal justice, the rights of corporations and the undermining of rights of consumers, the death penalty, education, and environment — freedom of speech, gun violence.”
“It is entirely and completely invasive,” he said.
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The Trump judicial nominees also made a major impact on the Second Amendment in 2022 with the ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, where the court’s conservative majority held that any gun control law had to be consistent with the nation’s history and tradition dating back to the founding. If there were not a restraint on a firearm dating back to the founding, then the law would likely be unconstitutional.
Mr. Faleschini said that the Trump appointees practice originalism when it works for their end goal. He said the justices “didn’t bother to do an analysis of the actual hardware that was in circulation in the late 1700s, so originalism as to what? So that methodology can always be manipulated to fit an outcome that you want.”
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Mr. Faleschini, meanwhile, said voting rights have been an area reshaped by Trump judges. He noted a recent move by two Trump appointees who were on a three-judge panel that struck down Louisiana’s congressional map, which had added a second majority Black district. That dispute is being appealed to the Supreme Court.
“There is no more damage that the Trump judges or the Supreme Court can do to our Constitution than to undermine the right of the people to choose their representatives in free and fair elections,” Mr. Faleschini said.