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Breaking: Trump Chooses Gorsuch for SCOTUS
President Donald Trump has selected Neil M. Gorsuch to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. He made the announcement in a live, televised event from the White House that began at 8 p.m. Eastern Time.
Gorsuch prevailed over the other finalists, Thomas Hardiman of Pennsylvania, and William H. Pryor Jr. of Alabama, and was easily confirmed by the Senate 10 years ago to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Colorado.
In the announcement, Trump said, “Judge Gorsuch has outstanding legal skills, a brilliant mind, tremendous discipline and has earned bipartisan support…. I only hope that both Democrats and Republicans can come together for once, for the good of the country.”
At National Review, Ramesh Ponnuru praised the pick as a worth heir to Scalia.
He is, like Scalia, a textualist and an originalist: someone who interprets legal provisions as their words were originally understood.
Gorsuch is a Colorado native and the son of a Republican politician, the late Anne Gorsuch Burford, who was a state legislator and then director of the Environmental Protection Agency for President Reagan. He attended Columbia University and Harvard Law School, after which he clerked for D.C. Circuit Court judge David Sentelle. He then clerked for Supreme Court justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy in 1993–94. The next year he studied for a doctorate of philosophy at Oxford University under the legal philosopher John Finnis. After spending ten years at a law firm in Washington, D.C., Gorsuch went to work for the Justice Department in 2005–06. President George W. Bush nominated him to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Utah, Wyoming, and New Mexico. His confirmation was quick and uncontroversial.
At SCOTUSblog, Andrew Hamm outlines his qualifications.
If Trump does nominate Gorsuch, the judge’s 49 years would make him – despite his gray hair – among the youngest of recent Supreme Court nominees (Justice Clarence Thomas was 43 when nominated, and Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan were both 50.). In the early 1980s, when Scalia was beginning his judicial career, Gorsuch was just beginning to assemble the glittering résumé that may have him at the cusp of an appointment to the court. President Ronald Reagan’s choice of Gorsuch’s mother, Anne Gorsuch Burford, to head the Environmental Protection Agency in 1981 brought the Denver teenager to Washington, where he attended Bethesda’s Georgetown Preparatory School and won a national debate championship. Gorsuch completed his undergraduate degree at Columbia University, where he co-founded a student newspaper that gave voice to conservative viewpoints, and his law degree at Harvard Law School, which he attended on a Truman Scholarship…
Legal ethics and judicial standards seem to be of particular interest to Gorsuch, and, judging by his comments in his speech about Scalia, he takes seriously the fact that judges swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. Gorsuch has also modeled judicial conduct off the bench. For instance, when he gave the 2013 keynote address at the Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention in Washington, Gorsuch did not follow the pattern of past speakers (including sitting judges) by giving a “rabble-rousing speech” in the hopes of advancing their visibility and careers, according to one Federalist Society member. Instead, Gorsuch spoke more dryly about “law’s irony,” which both constrains and guarantees our freedom. When asked about the choice of topics by Richard Samp of the Washington Legal Foundation, Gorsuch said he felt constrained by the code of judicial conduct not to discuss anything controversial.
Hart suggests that Gorsuch is available, open and sociable “because he’s from Colorado.” And Gorsuch does love the state. He’s an avid fly fisher who enjoys being outdoors. With his wife, Louise, Gorsuch raises horses, chickens and goats, and often arranges ski trips with old friends and new associates from his former law firm. However, [Melissa Hart, a law professor at the University of Colorado] adds, she thinks Gorsuch would be willing to move back to Washington, “for the right job.” If Gorsuch does join the bench, she expects she will disagree with many of his rulings, but predicts he has the “smarts and intellectual seriousness” to become a “shaper of the court.”
The nomination is also getting support from unexpected places. Neal Katyal, former Solicitor General under President Obama, said:
Published in Law, Politics“Judge Gorsuch is one of the most thoughtful and brilliant judges to have served our nation over the last century. As a judge, he has always put aside his personal views to serve the rule of law. To boot, as those of us who have worked with him can attest, he is a wonderfully decent and humane person. I strongly support his nomination to the Supreme Court.”
Seems like Crow is on the menu again.
ltrn,
Now, that will work.
Regards,
Jim
Worth noting this was not Sessions’ pick. It was not his sister’s pick. And it was not Bannon’s pick. It was Trump’s.
Not surprising to read the honest self evaluation from Mr. Meyer, whose original misgivings were serious and not silly.
Would like to hear from the Judge Judy, “Trump’s sister, Judge Reinhold forecasters.
Doubt we will.
Well done, Mr. President. Keep proving me wrong.
Who’s next?
Yeah, you!
My vote has been repaid in full.
He’ll be the only Protestant on the court which, if my memory serves me correctly, currently consists of five Catholics and three Jews.
As Peter Robinson would say: Let the rejoicing be boundless
Pro tip: Demanding the eating of crow is pretty much the best way to make sure it doesn’t happen.
Outstanding pick! It couldn’t be better. This is the main reason I voted for Trump. He hasn’t let me down. Everything else is gravy.
Not sure the four liberals really believe in their faith. Or any orthodox understanding of their faiths.
If they had their way Hillary would have been president and the court would have been starkly different. I didn’t like Trump coming out of the primaries but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see what the election was about. Since the the election Trump has done just about everything to my heart’s content. Sure he’s got some rough edges but he’s been better than any of the Republican primary candidates would have been. He’s just fearless.
I absolutely love this quote from Gorsuch today:
Here’s something I don’t understand.
On the left, you’re getting a lot of hyperventilating about this guy (as they would about any SCOTUS pick). But it pretty much just amounts to “he’s a conservative.” Ok. But what did you expect? Would you be protesting if Hillary was elected and she appointed a liberal?
It’s clearly not about respecting precedent (like roe v. wade is some sacred cow) – Hillary vowed to nominate someone who would overturn Citizen’s United. Would that have been a problem? Would that have been judicial activism?
In the state of Washington, people were so sure of Hillary’s victory that they also included an initiative on the ballot, whose sole purpose was to declare that the people of Washington supported President Hillary’s (whoops!) promise to overturn Citizen’s United.
Yes, we actually made a law about how happy we were that she was going to overturn a Supreme Court decision.
So… um… a republican president appoints someone conservative. You’re upset? Go jump in a lake.
A fantastic quote! And one I wish I could tattoo on the forehead of the very bad judge in my own courtroom.
I don’t know this man, who is he?
Those crediting Scott Adams with some particular expertise go overboard but he has a damn point. How many times can Trump’s political opponents rise up with their hysteria? Will they do it over the the cabinet picks? The Executive Orders? The Supreme Court nominee?
By this point it should be blindingly obvious that he is playing them, it is only day 11. Adams is clearly right, this is flooding the field and overwhelming opponents with their own outrage.
I wish everyone else had been as perceptive about Souter as Ted Kennedy was.
Credit where due:
“The judge who always likes the results he reaches is a bad judge.”
–Antonin Scalia
So we can only hope that they are soulmates.
So what about all those Republicans who during the primaries told us they wanted Ted Cruz on the Supreme Court. How are they taking this? (I wish I could remember their names. No, on second thought I’m glad I usually forget such things.)
I’m pretty sure Ginsburg will retire soon enough.
Strangely, not seeming to get tired of it!
And who can possibly be against diversity?
Yeah, I might cry… But only at the thought that this pick could give us the next liberal justice after he “grows” in office.
I’m hanging onto the hope that he will be Scalia, Thomas, and Alito instead.
He will grow from the penumbras and emanations of this pick.
We have Roberts to mature like a fine cheese while sitting on that bench.
Yup. We need the next two to be Scalia and Thomas clones.
Which reminds me that power tends to corrupt. But it has certainly been taking its good old time about it in corrupting Thomas.
I hope he ends up being more like Thomas than Scalia. Thomas has always been principled orientalist and even the left respects that because Thomas sometimes comes down on the liberal side of the argument because that is what the law says. Scalia would put aside orientalist idea at times if it meet to much of an upheaval in the law. Thomas has always been I don’t care about upheavals and drastic changes its what the law says and its not my job to take into consideration unintended consequences of the law on society that is congress job.