Trump Considering Philly Judge For Supreme Court: Report

President Trump's shortlist to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court includes a Pennsylvania judge, according to recent reports.

Thomas Hardiman, a conservative judge on the Philadelphia-based U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals, is being considered, sources told CNN.

Hardiman, 53, was originally considered for the seat that was ultimately filled by the most recent appointee to the Supreme Court, Neal Gorsuch.

Kennedy, long considered a moderate voice on the court and a swing vote on numerous polarized cases, is slated to depart on July 31 after tendering his resignation. A Trump-appointed replacement would likely tip the scales heavily in the conservative direction.

Hardiman certainly fits the bill. He grew up in the Watch City, Massachusetts where his father, Bob, ran Waltham Central Square Taxi. In 1987 Hardiman, who is now a federal appeals court judge in Pennsylvania, drove a cab and worked as a dispatcher at his dad's company.

Hardiman was valedictorian of Waltham High School class of 1983 and the first in his Irish-Catholic family to graduate college. Not only did he graduate college, though, as it happened he finished University of Notre Dame and went on to get his law degree at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington.

He was first appointed to serve on the federal district court by George W. Bush in 2007, after several years in private practice in Washington, D.C. and in Pittsburgh.

One person in his corner the first go-round was reportedly Trump's sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, who serves with Hardiman on the federal appeals court.

Hardiman has an undergraduate degree from Notre Dame and went to law school at Georgetown. Some of his notable cases include Second Amendment issues, where he stands firmly on the right.

Trump's shortlist to replace Kennedy includes, along with Hardiman, many of the other names that were considered for Gorsuch's post. He is expected to announce his nominee at 9 p.m. Monday evening.

Speaking on the Senate floor in the wake of Kennedy's announcement, House Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate would vote to confirm Kennedy's replacement this fall. McConnell, however, refused to give Obama's nominee Merrick Garland a hearing when he was nominated in March 2016, saying the nomination should be left to the next president.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and others have advocated for delaying the confirmation of a new judge until Robert Mueller's investigation into the Trump campaign's possible ties to Russia is concluded.

Kennedy has been far from liberal during his time on the court, which began in 1988 after he was nominated by President Ronald Reagan. He was decidedly conservative, but moderately so, having joined the majority in Bush v. Gore, which handed the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush. He also voted with the court's conservatives in cases on the Second Amendment and voting rights.

Kennedy, though, was also the court's leading champion of gay rights, and he was reliably with the court's liberals when it came to cases of abortion, affirmative action and the death penalty.

With reporting from Patch correspondent Feroze Dhanoa and Jenna Fisher

Official Public Portrait of Hardiman by Roy Engelbrecht