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Michael A. Fragoso

Michael A. Fragoso is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a partner at Torridon Law PLLC. He was chief counsel for nominations on the Senate Judiciary Committee during Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation process. He also served as chief counsel to then-Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.

The Case for Moving a Circuit Judgeship from Delaware

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President Trump has a real opportunity to put a lasting mark on a court that’s quietly important to the country—and personally important to him—by selecting two young conservatives for its vacant seats. He shouldn’t let Delaware get in his way.

In Defense of Amy Coney Barrett: An Examination of Her Record

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Justice Barrett's presence has fundamentally shifted the center of the Court. For decades, conservatives could only win by fitting their cases into the politically liberal framework of Anthony Kennedy. Now—thanks to Barrett—the path to victory is to fit it into the judicially conservative framework of Antonin Scalia. That alone is a political and jurisprudential victory, even if it doesn’t result in litigation victories in all cases.

In Defense of Amy Coney Barrett: Why She Was Nominated to the Supreme Court

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Republicans couldn’t have filled the seat without Justice Barrett. Mitch McConnell knew this, and for that reason insisted that she needed to be the nominee.

Joe Biden’s Final Attack on the Courts

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In the end, Biden's decision to veto the JUDGES Act can only be explained as a petty act of revenge against his predecessor and successor, President-elect Donald Trump. Republicans would do well to remember his partisan gracelessness next Congress when Democrats invariably make high-minded, self-interested appeals in the judicial wars.

The Best of Both Judicial Worlds: Why State Justices Are Not Enough

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When picking a Supreme Court justice, the next Republican president should look to federal appellate judges who have also served on a state supreme court.
Public Discourse

Governing the Medical Profession: How Obamacare Undermines Medical Practice

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Applying new governance methods to medicine will undermine physician autonomy and make doctors more liable to malpractice claims. The second in a two-part series.
Public Discourse

Governing the Medical Profession: Obamacare and New Governance

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Obamacare purports to improve medical quality through dynamic processes that involve government-supported private actors, quality benchmarks, and participation by practitioners and patients. The first in a two-part series.
Public Discourse

Poverty, Abortion, and Budgets: Democrats for Life Need Better Arguments

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A recent address encouraging Democrats for Life to re-elect President Obama is marked by flawed reasoning and misleading statistics.
Public Discourse

Abortion and the Courts: Judicial Nominations Are Imperfect but Matter

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Criticism that Republican justices have only hurt the pro-life cause is misguided, because Republican presidents from Reagan onward have deliberately tried to advance judicial conservatism through federal court appointees—a commitment that has brought victories both for judicial conservatism and the pro-life cause. The second of a two part series.
Public Discourse

Abortion and the Courts: A Brief Political History of Judicial Conservatism

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Legalized, unrestricted abortion can’t be blamed on conservative judicial policy just because Republican justices voted for it. Judicial conservatism as we now understand it came after Roe. The first of a two-part series.
Public Discourse

Pepsi, Proxies, and Pro-Life Respect for the Rule of (Corporate) Law

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Social activists opposed to the use of HEK-293—a kidney cell line derived from an aborted baby—in PepsiCo products should not respond with shareholder activism, because it wreaks political and economic havoc.
Public Discourse

The HHS Mandate and Legal Precedent

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Contrary to what Obama supporters would have us believe, there’s no precedent for the HHS mandate.
Public Discourse

Trust-Busting and Trusting in the Administrative State

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The Obama administration’s efforts to regulate the cellular-phone service market through a decades-old trust-busting ideology is at odds with the courts’ more recent “new learning” approach to market competition. And there are lessons here for pro-lifers.
Public Discourse

The Costs of Taking Conscience

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The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the American Board of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ABOG) are restricting opportunities for health-care professionals to object to abortion and contraception on grounds of conscience. This will accelerate the growing problem of physician shortage.
Public Discourse

The Stealth Abortion Pill

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The so-called “week-after pill” is an abortion drug hidden under the guise of contraception.
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