Donald Trump has narrowed his short list for his first Supreme Court pick down to roughly a half-dozen finalists but the president-elect and his top advisers are already thinking about a second selection, as they seek to quickly remodel the high court with a reliably conservative bent.

Trump’s team wants to make filling the seat held by the late Justice Antonin Scalia one of the earliest acts of his presidency, according to multiple transition officials, in hopes of scoring an energizing and unifying victory for the conservative movement.


And as Trump weighs perhaps the most enduring personnel decision he’ll make as president-elect — filing one of only nine lifetime seats on the high court — he has sought input from an array of friends, former rivals, and legal and TV personalities.

“He clearly understands he may have a chance to define the court for a generation or more and he is taking it very seriously,” said former Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump confidante.

While Scalia’s seat is the only current opening, Trump’s advisers are plotting how to fill that vacancy in tandem with the next one — a slot if vacated by a liberal justice like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 83, or swing-vote Justice Anthony Kennedy, 80, could far more dramatically move the court’s political center of gravity to the right.

The thinking inside the transition, according to multiple people involved in the internal deliberations, is that Scalia’s replacement offers Trump and the conservative movement the best chance for an unabashedly rock-ribbed replacement because it would not fundamentally shift the court’s balance of power.

“You’re basically dealing with a situation where no matter what conservative you put on the court you’re establishing the same parity that existed,” said a transition official involved in the selection process. “That is first and foremost in everybody’s minds.”

But in the current search process, Trump’s team is also hoping to identify a conservative candidate — possibly a woman — who could be more politically palatable, or at least harder for Senate Democrats to oppose, if Kennedy or Ginsburg leave the court.

“To the extent there are ways of slicing and dicing the list, you want to be sensitive to who would be best as your first, forward-looking nominee for the Scalia seat,” said the transition official. “And then who are your better bets for seats that are going to be potentially more contentious.”

Two of the most-discussed names are Diane Sykes of the Chicago-based 7th Circuit federal appeals court and William Pryor of the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit, in part because Trump himself name-dropped them at a primary debate last February. Both are on the public list of 21 judges that Trump pledged during the campaign that he will select from. Both also have state-level experience: Sykes on the Wisconsin Supreme Court and Pryor as Alabama attorney general.

Sykes, notably, is the ex-wife of recently retired conservative radio host Charlie Sykes, an outspoken Trump critic.

Trump, besides promising to appoint justices in the mold of Scalia, is looking for some distinctly Trumpian qualities. He has repeatedly told his advisers, for instance, “I want someone who is not weak.”

That is especially appealing to legal conservative hardliners who are still scarred by former Justices David Souter and Sandra Day O’Connor, two Republican appointees who often sided with the court’s liberal bloc, and to a lesser extent Chief Justice John Roberts, an appointee of President George W. Bush, who upheld the constitutionality of President Obama’s health care law.

“With each passing disappointment, people want to make sure this is not just someone who looks conservative, but is virtually guaranteed to be conservative on the bench,” said one veteran of past GOP Supreme Court confirmation fights, Curt Levey of Freedomworks and the Committee for Justice.

The desire for a justice who is all but a sure conservative vote also seems to have limited Trump’s list to sitting judges, all with a substantial record of written decisions.

Those close to Trump’s search process say that the list now under more serious consideration is closer to a half-dozen, including Pryor and Sykes, as well as 3rd Circuit Judge Thomas Hardiman, 6th Circuit Judge Raymond Kethledge, 8th Circuit Judges Steve Colloton and Raymond Gruender, 10th Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch and Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larsen.

Trump released two lists of potential justices during the campaign, but most of the candidates under serious consideration are on the initial list of 11. The only two women in the current top tier, Larsen, who is only 48, and Sykes, 59, are among those who could be “held back” for a second opening.

“Going with a woman or a minority does get you some brownie points, so in terms of picking the hardest to confirm now, that would argue for a man,” Levey said. “Also the symbolic value, if Ginsburg does leave the court, of replacing her with a woman WOULD be important.”

Trump’s advisers want his Supreme Court pick to be one of his earliest acts as president, though the plan has been not to announce a choice until after Sen. Jeff Sessions is confirmed as attorney general. Both Sessions and any high court pick must pass through the same Senate Judiciary Committee.

The two men spearheading Trump’s search are Don McGahn, Trump’s incoming White House counsel, and Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society’s executive vice president. Incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, and top Trump advisers Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway are also involved, as are Vice President-elect Mike Pence and Sessions.

Leo said on “Fox News Sunday” that Trump’s team wants the Scalia vacancy filled in time for the new justice to be seated for the final sitting of this term in late April. That could allow the new justice to weigh in on important pending cases, including the detention of immigrants and transgender rights.

“Ideally, you would have someone who could be seated on the court at least by then to hear those final round of cases, perhaps even have some of the 4-4 decisions, if there are any, reheard by the court,” Leo said. He noted that Ginsburg — “one of the most liberal justices”— was confirmed in just 50 days at the start of President Clinton’s first term.

A Trump transition spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Democrats are promising a vigorous vetting of anyone Trump nominates. But both sides also understand that if Democrats try to block whoever Trump picks, Republicans are likely to respond with the so-called nuclear option, ending the right to filibuster high court picks entirely.

“I think Democrats would be foolish to go all out when we’re replacing Scalia,” Levey said, because the ideological balance of the court would remain unchanged. “On Ginsburg, you fight to the death and Kennedy, it would be close to a fight to the death. So, why have a fight to the death now, when you’re probably going to lose?”

Trump campaigned heavily on the Supreme Court throughout 2016, telling GOP audiences that the next president would appoint “probably more justices than any president has picked in one term.”

“You don't like me, but you have no choice, you have to go for me. I’m sorry,” he said only half-jokingly.

Advisers say Trump is aware of how powerfully the issue played out, specifically that exit polls showing 21 percent of voters said the Supreme Court was the “most important factor” in their vote, and that Trump won 56 percent of those voters.

As he often does ahead of big decisions, Trump has sought opinions from far and wide, including Fox News legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano, former rivals Ted Cruz and Rick Santorum and at least one person on his longer list: Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, who is not considered to be in serious contention for a high court seat.

While Trump promised his public list of 21 was “definitive” when it was announced, he could still expand it for a second pick. “After the first nominee he may add some new possibilities,” Gingrich said, a view confirmed by another transition official.

Judge William Pryor has called the Roe v. Wade decision “the worst abomination of constitutional law.” | AP Photo

Of Trump’s choices, perhaps the most outspoken and controversial pick would be Pryor, who was Sessions’ deputy in the Alabama attorney general’s office. Pryor once called Roe v. Wade, the 1973 abortion decision, “the worst abomination of constitutional law” and he ended a speech with the prayer, “Please, God, no more Souters.”

But Pryor, who also once sought the ouster of Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore for refusing to follow a federal order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from state grounds, has some detractors in the evangelical movement.

Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council, has been in contact with Pence to share his views of Trump’s list and pointedly noted that Pryor “has some decisions that raised questions.”

“There’s clearly some on the list that are better than others,” Perkins said, adding that he approves of the list overall.

Whatever happens with the high court, Trump has a chance to quickly reshape the judiciary with more than 100 openings to fill in federal district and appeals courts. Some of those vacancies were the product of stalemate between the Obama White House and Republican senators who have an effective veto over judicial picks in their state.

For now, Trump’s team is girding for the higher-profile Supreme Court nomination to be one of the bigger battles of his early presidency.

“The court is 4 to 4,” noted another senior Trump adviser, “And whoever he puts there it’s 5 to 4.”

Those involved in the deliberations warn that Trump himself — occupied with filling his Cabinet, West Wing staff, and with the inauguration — has not fully dived into the process, and the list could still shift. They note that Trump, who relies heavily on instinct and his in-person impressions, has still yet to meet with the finalists.

“There’s every reason to think he’d be the same picking a Supreme Court justice as he has been for executive branch nominees, and probably go very much on a gut feel,” Levey said. "I know what he thinks a secretary of state looks like, but I’m not sure what he thinks a Supreme Court justice looks like. That makes it unpredictable.”