One of Carter's strongest legacies could be methodically torn down during the administration of President-elect Donald Trump, a Slate writer warned.
In a column originally penned earlier this year — and recirculated Monday after the former president's death — court watcher Mark Joseph Stern described a shakeup of the judiciary as a centerpiece of Carter's work. He claimed that would struggle to survive Trump.
"The linchpin of Carter’s plan to revolutionize and diversify the judiciary depended on the creation of a brand-new federal commission to pick appeals court judges, wresting the power to make judicial nominations away from individual senators," Stern wrote.
Carter managed to get fierce segregationist Sen. John Eastland (D-MS), the then chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on board with the plan as a fellow Southerner — and made substantial progress while he was in office, Stern wrote.
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The purpose of diversifying the federal bench was to get people from a broad variety of backgrounds and life experiences, who might have wider perspectives on the law. In particular, Carter's commission leaned on the American Bar Association to put more emphasis on defense and public interest lawyers over prosecutors.
"The outcome transformed the judiciary for decades — and set a new precedent for the elevation of diverse nominees," wrote Stern. "When Carter took office, just eight women had ever been appointed to one of the 500 federal judgeships in the country. (For the purposes of this article, I’m referring to the district courts, appellate courts, and the Supreme Court.) Carter appointed 40 women, including eight women of color. Similarly, before Carter, just 31 people of color had been confirmed to federal courts, often over Eastland’s strenuous disapproval.
"The peanut farmer from Plains appointed 57 minorities to the judiciary."
The result was often a strengthening of the law for disadvantaged groups; most notably, a Carter-appointed judge set in motion the case that reined in racial discrimination in jury selection.
All of this, wrote Stern, stands in stark contrast to what Trump did with the bench in the four years he last controlled it, undoing a precedent by Democratic and Republican presidents since Carter that came before him of nominating a diverse selection of judges.
"For his part, Trump has been advised chiefly by Leonard Leo, a white man who has primarily recommended other white male members of his Federalist Society, a network of conservative attorneys and law students," wrote Stern. "Leo wants to return the courts to a pre–New Deal era. He opposes expanded rights for women, LGBTQ people, and racial minorities, and especially loathes Roe v. Wade; other targets include progressive economic legislation like the Affordable Care Act."
After Trump left office, Biden largely used Carter's philosophy on judges, appointing large numbers of women and minorities to the bench and drawing from a variety of nontraditional legal backgrounds. And Trump will have far fewer seats to fill in his upcoming term than his last, as Democratic senators worked tirelessly to leave as few vacancies for him as possible.
