Some key Florida elected leaders, including U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, are voicing enthusiasm about the possibility of Judge Barbara Lagoa being nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court, but not all legal experts see this scenario as a likely one.
Lagoa, who now serves on the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and had a brief stint on the Florida Supreme Court, is among the names President Trump has floated to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
“I don’t think she is going to be nominated,” Robert Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, told the Florida Record.
Politicians such as Scott and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Pensacola) have touted her qualifications in recent media interviews. And some Lagoa supporters have noted that her nomination could help Trump defeat Democrat Joe Biden in the Florida primary because Lagoa is Cuban-American and could attract voters in southern Florida.
But Jarvis said Trump already has a majority of the Cuban-American vote locked up and that a Lagoa nomination to the high court would not help much in the key swing state.
“I don’t see where Lagoa helps,” Jarvis said. “... When the alternative is Joe Biden, Cuban-Americans are not going to not vote for Trump.”
In addition, Seventh Circuit Judge Amy Barrett, who already has met with the president, seems to have credentials that are more attractive to conservatives, he said. In previous opinions, Barrett has taken more conservative views on gun rights, immigration and abortion, and she has more experience than Lagoa on the federal bench.
“Trump wants to deliver on a promise he has made to evangelicals” to reshape the high court’s support for Roe v. Wade, Jarvis said.
In addition, Trump remarked during the fight over the nomination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh that he was keeping Barrett in reserve for when Ginsburg’s seat became vacant, he said.
If Trump truly wanted to use the judicial nomination process to buoy his prospects in Florida’s presidential vote, he could have nominated Merrick Garland, former President Barack Obama’s derailed pick for the high court in 2016, according to Barrett. That would have appealed to undecided voters since Garland is not viewed as a hard-right ideologue – and created the impression that a second Trump term would be more moderate, he said.
“That would be the ultimate pick if he really wanted to play electoral politics,” Jarvis said.
Lagoa did gain wide bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate for her nomination to the 11th Circuit. During her confirmation hearing in 2019, senators voted 80-15 in favor of elevating her to the federal appeals court based in Atlanta.
In July, however, Democratic U.S. senators on the Judiciary Committee complained about Lagoa’s failure to recuse herself in the case of Jones v. DeSantis, which ultimately may determine whether qualified felons can cast ballots in Florida elections. Lagoa should have recused herself because she had taken part in an advisory opinion on the felon-voting issue while serving on the Florida Supreme Court, the senators said in a July 21 letter.