President Donald Trump says he’ll announce his nominee Monday to fill the pivotal Supreme Court vacancy created by the retirement of Anthony Kennedy, and farm groups are eager this week for House and Senate negotiations to begin on a new farm bill.

 

Whomever Trump picks for the court is expected to push the court to the right on regulatory issues important to agriculture. Trump’s short list, according to reports, includes Brett Kavanaugh, a judge on the D.C. Court of Appeals; Amy Coney Barrett of the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Raymond Kethledge of the U.S. 6th Circuit, and Thomas Hardiman, of the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.

 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in an interview last week that he has had multiple conversations with Trump about the issue and that the Senate would act quickly on the nomination.

 

“We’ll be able to have a new justice by the beginning of October, which is when the Supreme Court’s fall term begins,” McConnell said.

 

Any of Trump’s picks is expected to read the Constitution and laws more narrowly than Kennedy sometimes did. Kavanaugh has by far the longest history of those believed to be on Trump’s short list when it comes to regulatory issues, since the D.C. Circuit has jurisdiction over federal environmental and labor regulations and consumer protection rules, among other issues.

 

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