President-elect Donald Trump met on Saturday with Judge William Pryor of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, a judge on his short list for potential Supreme Court nominees, the Associated Press reports. Trump has said he would select a candidate to fill the seat of the late Justice Antonin Scalia within his first two weeks in office. He has promised to seek someone in the conservative’s mold and said he is working from a list of 21 people, mainly conservative state and federal judges in their 50s.
For nearly a year, the court has had only eight justices. The likely confirmation of Trump’s choice by a Republican-controlled Senate would restore a fifth vote for conservative outcomes in cases involving voting rights, the power of unions, and in class-action lawsuits. Trump has hinted that he had two favorites on the list of 21, Pryor and Judge Diane Sykes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Pryor, who is from Alabama, is a close associate of Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions.