Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy on Monday released a list of potential conservative Supreme Court nominees, borrowing a page out of former President Donald Trump's playbook.
Ramaswamy, 37, released a list of contenders including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) as possible nominees for the nation's highest court, as well as naming federal judges who struck down President Joe Biden's airplane mask mandate and the Food and Drug Administration's 20-year-old approval of the abortion pill mifepristone.
WHAT UPCOMING MAJOR MOVIES WILL BE AFFECTED BY THE HOLLYWOOD ACTORS AND WRITERS STRIKE?
The decision to release a list of potential nominees mirrors Trump's 2016 move where he released his own list of possible appointments to galvanize his base. Notably, Trump's 2016 list included Lee before he expanded it in 2020 to name Sens. Cruz, Tom Cotton (R-AR), and Josh Hawley (R-MO), though Cotton and Hawley were not included on Ramaswamy's list.
"Our courts remain the last line of defense against the overreach and weaponization of government. As President, I will appoint judges who will protect the integrity of our constitutional Republic," Ramaswamy said in a statement.
The venture capitalist and political outsider candidate has been polling fourth among potential Republican primary voters, according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls. Ramaswamy's move comes after the high court and its 6-3 Republican-appointed majority in 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade, which was a top priority for the anti-abortion conservatives.
In May, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who is running second to Trump in the 2024 primary, raised the idea of installing a "7-2 conservative majority" on the high court should he be voted president, also suggesting that the three justices Trump placed on the high court weren't quite as conservative as he and other Republicans had hoped.
Ramaswamy also named seven federal judges, including U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit Judge James Ho, 9th Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke, 11th Circuit Judge Lisa Branch, and U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, with the latter recently ruling against the FDA's decades-old approval of mifepristone earlier this year.
Ho and Branch have said they wouldn't hire clerks from Yale and Stanford as retaliation for what they view as "cancel culture" at those colleges. Ramaswamy holds a law degree from Yale.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Ramaswamy also named former Solicitor General Paul Clement, a veteran attorney who has argued over 100 cases before the high court and will soon represent fishing companies in a case that seeks to deflate the power of executive agencies.
Other people in his pool include U.S. District Judges Martha Pacold, Sarah Pitlyk, Kathryn Mizelle, and Brantley Starr, as well as Stephen Alexander Vaden of the U.S. Court of International Trade, and Ryan Holte of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.