Like the other judges in the running for the vacant Supreme Court seat, Joan Larsen is a woman and a conservative.
At 52, she is young enough to spend the next three decades in Washington and is the sort of jurist who sticks closely to the literal text of the United States Constitution. Moreover, she offers a boost in a battleground election state.
But then, there is the fact that, in 1987, she volunteered for the short-lived campaign of Democratic candidate Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., according to a questionnaire she completed for the Senate Judiciary Committee. She made phone calls and stuffed envelopes in her home state of Iowa.
Although the White House will not confirm who is and is not on President Trump’s shortlist, he referred this week to “a great one from Michigan,” where Larsen served on the state Supreme Court.
Today, her conservative credentials are not in doubt. Her supporters point out that a decade after her foray into Democratic politics, she volunteered for Republican Bob Dole; that she is a member of the Federalist Society, a group that funnels names to Trump as he rebuilds the judicial system with a rightward slant; and that her mentor was the late Justice Antonin Scalia, for whom she clerked in the 1990s.
People who have worked with her describe a collegiate, thoughtful style.
Former Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Bob Young told the Detroit News: “She tries to figure out what the law requires, and she does that. She pays attention to the words of contracts, statutes, and the Constitution, and she’s very meticulous about trying to figure out what that means.”
“She doesn’t treat the Constitution as if it were a Rorschach inkblot, which has no independent meaning. In that sense, she’s properly considered a careful, thoughtful judge.”
He also said she was initially reluctant to run for the state Supreme Court and subject herself to such public scrutiny.
“Even at the local level, the history of elections have been quite brutal in Michigan, so there was some trepidation and rightfully so about whether that’s something you want to subject yourself to,” he said.
Larsen is married to a University of Michigan law professor. And the couple have two children.
Larsen was named on Trump’s original list of potential Supreme Court justices released before the 2016 election. Instead, Trump picked her for the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears appeals in federal cases in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee.
Her shorter time on the federal bench than front-runner Amy Coney Barrett works for and against her. Analysts say her short record could make for an easier confirmation, with fewer contentious opinions to pick over. She has steered clear of publicly stating her stance on the Roe v. Wade abortion ruling that conservatives are intent on challenging.
At the same time, that means she lacks the sort of conservative lobbying effort that has propelled Barrett to the front of the line.
Her time in President George W. Bush’s White House Office of Legal Counsel at the height of the war on terror emerged as a key line of questioning during her 2017 confirmation. She said she was not involved in drafting controversial memos on indefinite detention or torture.
And she said she would be ready to go against the wishes of Trump.
“I would have absolutely no trouble ruling against the president who appointed me or any successor president, as well,” she said.
