DES MOINES, Iowa – It was a line that you would expect to receive thunderous applause.
mike-pence” target=”_blank”>Former Vice President Mike Pence< activists attending the annual leadership summit of the Family Leader, a top social conservative organization in the first-in-the-nation presidential caucus state of us-regions, touted the donald-trump” target=”_blank”>Trump administration<
“We appointed more than 300 conservatives to our federal courts at every level, including Justice Neil Gorsuch, Justice judiciary and how about Justice judiciary Isn’t she something?” Pence told audience.
The former vice president’s comment received polite applause, but there was no standing ovation.
Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks during the Family Leadership Summit, Friday, July 16, 2021, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Pence was the final major speaker at the daylong conference, and the audience may have been tired. But the reaction may also be more evidence that social conservative voters are disappointed to date over what many may feel is a failure to deliver by the three judiciary justices named to the high court by then-President Trump.
With the promise of stocking the federal courts with conservative judges, evangelical voters overlooked Trump’s numerous controversies and overwhelmingly supported him in his 2016 presidential election victory and his 2020 reelection defeat.
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And Trump – with a major assist from then-Senate Majority Leader mitch-mcconnell” target=”_blank”>Mitch McConnell<
The former president is also anything but pleased.
“I am very disappointed. I fought very hard for them, but I was very disappointed with a number of their rulings,” Trump told Real America’s Voice network anchor David Brody last month after the ObamaCare ruling.
And conservative commentator, media host and author Ben Shapiro told Fox News last week that “so far, we have seen little from either Barrett or Kavanaugh to justify conservatives’ high hopes for them.”
While there’s disappointment, evangelicals note that the Supreme Court has yet to hear a major abortion case under the 6-3 conservative majority.
But that will soon change, as the high court announced in May that it will take up an abortion rights case next term that’s seen as a major challenge to Roe v. Wade, the decades-old landmark Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.
The justices say they’ll hear Mississippi’s appeal of lower court decisions striking down a state ban on all abortions after 15 weeks, with the exception of medical emergencies or severe fetal abnormality. The case will likely be heard in front the court in the autumn, with a ruling expected in June of next year.
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A top national social conservative political leader, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, said the final verdict on Trump’s Supreme Court nominees is far from written.
“I think most have a wait-and-see attitude. There’s been some disappointment but there have also been tremendous victories for religious freedom and there has not yet been a major abortion case yet. We shall see,” the leader said, adding that Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett “are vast improvements over what we would have gotten from Hillary Clinton and may turn out to be quite good.”
Vander Plaats concurred, highlighting that “the verdict’s not in. There’s a lot of cases that are probably coming up to the court that we’ll be watching very closely.”
Pointing to the upcoming Mississippi case, he said “we believe that’s a good sign that (the justices) would have the votes to start undermining the validity of Roe v. Wade.”
