Trump hands Hardiman a second Supreme Court snub
On January 31, 2017, Judge Thomas Hardiman stopped at a gas station in Altoona, Pennsylvania, setting off fierce speculation that he was headed to Washington for a Bachelor-style ceremony in which he would be named President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.
It was a false alarm, fueled in part by a White House effort to create an impression that both Hardiman and Justice Neil Gorsuch were racing to Washington. And now, almost 18 months later, Hardiman again finds himself in the inglorious position of being Trump’s runner-up, left home with the rest of the nation watching the primetime unveiling.
Last time, the rose went to Gorsuch; on Monday night, to Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
And the 53-year-old Hardiman, who publicly rose to near-frontrunner status on Monday, is left tending to his duties on the Third Circuit, a judicial bridesmaid yet again.
Trump loves the element of surprise, the build-up of drama and breathless television prognosticating, and he pulled it off once more with a Supreme Court pick. A White House that leaks staff dramas and internal chaos on a daily basis went tight-lipped for Trump’s grand unveiling — or tight-lipped enough that the world was left wondering which of the two finalists would get the nod.
That drama means that Hardiman, in the end, was again largely presented as a prop for the grand unveiling ceremony.
A Republican who has worked on past Supreme Court confirmation fights called Hardiman “the Susan Lucci of potential Supreme Court nominees,” an exaggerated reference to the soap star who was nominated for a daytime Emmy Award 19 times before she finally won.
Hardiman has a ways to go.
And at least Lucci did, eventually, win. Hardiman might be better compared to the Buffalo Bills, the NFL team that made it to four straight Super Bowls in the 1990s only to lose every single one.
Hardiman did not respond to a request for comment.
Despite his repeated failure to win Trump’s favor, Hardiman seemed to have a special advantage, having served on the circuit court alongside Trump’s sister, Maryanne Trump Barry.
James Martin, a partner at Reed Smith where Hardiman spent time in private practice, said he’s appeared before him as a judge several times and sat on professional panels with him. He has talked to Hardiman in the last two weeks.
Asked if he and Hardiman ever discussed his runner-up status to Gorsuch in the late-Justice Antonin Scalia contest, Martin said he hadn’t, but stressed that the judge really loves his day job and generally takes things in stride.
“He’s never brought it up and I certainly wouldn’t want to make that a topic of conversation,” Martin said.
“I just think in terms of judges and judging at the appellate level he brings a whole lot to the table in terms of what advocates care about and what their clients care about, too,” Martin added. “He’s very interested in scholarship of the law and its systemic place in our democratic system.”
Hardiman was the first in his immediate family to graduate from college, and he would have been the Supreme Court’s only non-Ivy Leaguer, having earned his law degree at Georgetown and helped pay for his schooling by driving a taxi.
And some saw Hardiman as a wise choice with less paper baggage.
“He has resolved fewer high-profile cases than [Kavanaugh] and fewer cases like ones SCOTUS hears,” said Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. “He would have a shorter paper trail.”
That paper trail, of course, is only getting longer as he continues his work on the Third Circuit.
“Tom is a very self-effacing and down-to-earth person. He is not somebody who takes himself too seriously and he is someone who is very engaging in his own way in terms of his relationships with people,” Martin said. “He has a strong character. He has got integrity. And he comes from a background where all the successes he has achieved by hard work make him a believer in what you can accomplish in the U.S. if you put your mind to it.”