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President Donald Trump announced Monday morning that he had settled on a nominee for the vacant seat on the Supreme Court — and one formerly dark-horse candidate has emerged as the judge with quite possibly the inside track to score the nod.
Thomas Hardiman, a 51-year-old judge who sits on the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals, has caught the attention of observers to fill the void left by the late Justice Antonin Scalia for several reasons.
With Democrats threatening to block Trump's Supreme Court pick, it's noteworthy that Hardiman was voted onto the appeals court in 2007 by a 95-0 tally. Both Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, voted to approve him
As Trump readies to announce Supreme Court pick, one judge emerges as top candidate
I've also borrowed this post from Reddit, in which the poster believes this will be a good thing for gun owners.
This is very good for us. Hardiman was on the 3-judge 3rd Circuit panel that decided on New Jersey's "justifiable need" requirement for a handgun permit. This was one of several cases the SAF brought on the issue, which were consolidated into Kachalsky.
(There's a great deal of background and commentary on the case here., and a good bio of Hardiman here.)
We lost that one, but Hardiman was the dissenting voice, and his opinion (ctl-F for "dissent) tells us a great deal about his stance on gun rights. He may actually be more emphatic on the RKBA (as would Diane Sykes) than Scalia was.
The Democrats will throw a fit because he's who Trump wants. Nobody cares. The Republicans will invoke the nuclear option, and he'll be nominated with at least 52 votes.
I'm lukewarm on his support for free speech, but he isn't quite the fruit loop William Pryor is, so the controversy will be muted. Something else to bear in mind is that he's only 52, so he could serve for two decades or more.
Tomorrow's SCOTUS pick will probably be Thomas Hardiman. • /r/gunpolitics
