Santorum: As President, Romney Wouldn't Appoint Conservative Judges

Rick Santorum is worried that, if elected president, Mitt Romney won’t appoint judicial conservatives to the Supreme Court.

“His record as governor of Massachusetts gives no cause for optimism,” Santorum writes in a Washington Times op-ed on Friday. Of the 36 judges Romney nominated while governor, only 9 were Republicans, Santorum writes.

He charges that this is the result of Romney’s passivity and unwillingness to fight for conservatives and said he fears that a President Romney would squander the chance to “establish an enduring majority on the court.”

Romney, on the other hand, says his record reflects the all-Democrat makeup of the Massachusetts Governors’ Council. But Santorum charges that the council is “effectively no different” from the Senate and said there was no evidence that Romney had fought for a conservative nominee or tried to change the council’s composition.

The former Pennsylvania senator said he would have a three-part test for potential jurists, who need to be “well-qualified, ethical and constitutionalists,” as well as have a record of not using foreign or international law to interpret the U.S. Constitution and laws.

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