His legislative accomplishments wouldn’t fill a teacup but pay attention, dear friends, because Donald Trump is quietly remaking one branch of government. The federal judiciary is being stuffed with like minds of Donald Trump. We’ve brought you the story of Brett Talley, the GOP blogger who was nominated to the bench without so much as one day of trial experience.
Now comes Jeff Mateer, who according to Slate:
Jeff Mateer has called transgender children part of “Satan’s plan,” dismissed same-sex marriage as “debauchery,” and asserted that the constitutional separation of church and state is a myth.
But Talley and Mateer are just the beginning. Right-leaning lawyers are suddenly taking advantage of an opening, and The Federalist Society is example A. Before last year’s election, this group of prominent conservatives decried the possibility of a Trump presidency in a now infamous statement:
Trump’s long record of statements and conduct, in his campaign and in his business career, have shown him indifferent or hostile to the Constitution’s basic features—including a government of limited powers, an independent judiciary, religious liberty, freedom of speech, and due process of law.
One year later, with Trump floundering and the Congress suddenly in play in 2018, the Federalists are now demanding that the judiciary be expanded, quickly. Congress, they argue, should allocate more money for more courts. What they don’t say is those courts would be packed with conservative jurists for years to come as Slate writer Dahlia Lithwick so eloquently explains.