Pre-Debate Memo: Personnel is Policy

TO: Interested Parties

FROM: Maggie Jo Buchanan, Managing Director of Demand Justice

DATE: September 10, 2024

SUBJECT: Personnel Is Policy: As Trump Tries To Walk Back Unpopular, Extreme Ideas, A Reminder That His Appointed Judges Are Already Enacting His Extreme Agenda

Over the past few weeks, Donald Trump has been attempting to walk back his support for Project 2025 and some of his more extreme, unpopular positions which have long been documented. Most recently, he’s flip-flopped on a Florida abortion rights measure, desperate to distract voters from the fact that – as a direct result of the individuals he put on the Supreme Court – he is responsible for the suffering that women across the country are experiencing due to abortion bans. 

Trump may try to distance himself from extreme policies all he wants, but the truth is personnel is policy, and Trump has appointed some of the judges making the most controversial decisions affecting our policy today.

Recent polling shows that the right to abortion, health care, and gun safety measures are the most important issues before the court for women of reproductive age–a group that has felt some of the worst impacts of recent MAGA court decisions. And on all these topics, Trump’s judicial appointees have worked to enact policy through the courts that would never pass muster at the ballot box. 

Abortion Rights

Trump’s three Supreme Court nominees–Justices Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Gorsuch–were the deciding factor in overturning Roe v. Wade. Due to Trump’s actions, a girl in Mississippi was forced to give birth after being raped. Women in Texas, facing serious pregnancy complications, have been brought to death’s door before doctors were able to help them. 

Aside from the fall of Roe v. Wade, Trump judges have also allowed suits to move forward that seek to restrict access to birth control and attempted to enact a ban on the abortion pill mifepristone from the bench.

Trump has, time and time again, proudly taken credit for what girls and women have had to endure in the post-Roe landscape created by his judges. 

Health 

Due to the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the Chevron doctrine – which enabled public servants to be responsive to the needs of the American people – rogue judges are now empowered to override policy decisions of scientists at the FDA, or environmental experts at the EPA, all of whom work to protect our health and make our communities safe. 

Further, Trump-appointed judges have clearly demonstrated their hostility to the Affordable Care Act’s protections for access to critical health care services such as cancer screenings and HIV prevention drugs during arguments in a case pending before the 5th Circuit. And, hand-in-hand with their hostility to women’s health overall, another Trump appointee has called into question protections for contraceptives. 

Gun Safety

Trump-appointed judges have put Americans more in danger of dying by gun violence. Just last month, a federal judge appointed by Trump dismissed charges for machine gun possession, and Trump judges have also struck down restrictions on semi-automatic weapons for young adults under the age of 21 and restrictions on handgun sales to 18-21 year olds.

And, as would have been known to Trump before he nominated him to the Supreme Court, then-Judge Kavanaugh voted against D.C.’s assault weapons ban while on the Circuit Court. 

Conclusion
No matter what Trump claims, his legacy on the bench speaks for itself. Trump may be attempting to walk back his support for the most radical and extreme parts of the Project 2025 agenda, but the judges he appointed to the bench have been relentless in their work to roll back our hard-won rights.