Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican presidential candidate for the 2024 elections, has become the first of his peers to release a list of prospective judicial appointees, were he to be elected president. His list includes Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, along with federal judges who have previously ruled against current President Biden. Ramaswamy, a 37-year-old asset management entrepreneur, stated that he wanted to show voters his alignment with their judicial interests, emphasizing the importance of transparency in the election process.
Ramaswamy told the AP:
“It’s important when you’re asking voters to select the next president of the United States, that you be as transparent as you can about what you’re going to do,”
Among the judges on Ramaswamy’s list are Kathryn Mizelle and Matthew Kacsmaryk, both of whom are Trump appointees. Mizelle invalidated Biden’s air travel mask mandate in 2022, while Kacsmaryk overturned the FDA’s long-standing approval of the abortion pill. Other notable names include Paul Clement, former solicitor general under President George W. Bush, and James Ho, a Trump nominee who quoted from Ramaswamy’s book in a ruling.
Ramaswamy took inspiration from former President Donald Trump, who also released a list of potential judicial appointments during his 2016 campaign, a move that greatly appealed to his supporters. However, Ramaswamy has stated that he wouldn’t nominate Cruz or Lee if it risked upsetting the balance in the Senate, where Democrats currently hold a slim majority.
See Ramaswamy’s full list here.
