Although rumors that Russia meddled in our election are en vogue, before talk of the Kremlin took over, many conservatives justified voting for Trump for one reason: The likelihood he’d nominate one, or even two, justices to the Supreme Court. As everyone knows by now, Trump did just that, by nominating Justice Neil Gorsuch to the bench. Now, as the court convenes to hear several blockbuster cases, Gorsuch will be thoroughly tested for the first time — and along with him, many conservatives’ case for Trump.
The Supreme Court will hear a number of complex and influential cases, from topics ranging from free speech and gerrymandering to free speech and the free exercise of religion, as in the now-infamous Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the case involving the cake baker who refused to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding.
In Carpenter v. United States, the court will hear a case that attempts to determine whether the Fourth Amendment allows the government to track a person’s information, including location, by searching their past cellphone records. Security gurus say the trail of data a smart phone leaves behind can help track down the bad guys; privacy advocates are concerned the government will soon abuse this information and believe the Fourth Amendment protects against this.
The Supreme Court will also hear Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, in which the court “will look to determine the constitutionality of a 1977 high court ruling — Abood v. Detroit Board of Education — that said public-sector employees who do not belong to a union can still be forced to pay a fee that covers the union’s costs in negotiating the contract that applies to all employees.”
These cases and their outcomes would all be important with or without Gorsuch. But now that he’s there, the country will be watching closely to see how he rules: Is he faithful to the Constitution as Scalia was or will liberals observe a “gotcha” moment? Will conservatives who hesitated to vote for Trump, save for this important opportunity, remain righteously indignant that Gorsuch’s rulings on these landmark cases were worth 3 a.m. tweets and accusations of Russia meddling in the election?
If the latter proves to be true, Trump will undoubtedly fuel this support into nominating another similar justice, if and when Justice Kennedy — often a wild card on the bench — chooses to retire. For now, conservatives wait to see if their hesitation to vote for Trump, save for proving this one litmus test, stands firm nearly one year later.
Nicole Russell is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist in Washington, D.C., who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota. She was the 2010 recipient of the American Spectator’s Young Journalist Award.
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