Polished and scrutinized to a fare-thee-well, Colorado-based appellate Judge Neil Gorsuch has political momentum as he enters his Supreme Court confirmation hearing starting Monday.
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As one observer put it: “When the Senate ceases to engage nominees in meaningful discussion of legal issues, the confirmation process takes on an air of vacuity and farce, and the Senate becomes incapable of either properly evaluating nominees or appropriately educating the public”.
The National Center for Lesbian Rights said Gorsuch has a “dangerously radical view of religious liberty that would undermine anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people and others”.
On Monday, a hearing will be held for President Trump’s nominee for Supreme Court.
And beware of senators, Republican or Democrat, trying to pin Gorsuch down on hot-button issues such as abortion or gun rights.
“It’s a fascinating process because clearly he has strengths in intellect and articulateness that make him an appealing candidate”, Mr. Blumenthal told The New York Times.
“Notwithstanding Gorsuch’s superb qualifications and principled approach to judging, Democrats and their liberal allies strain mightily to find plausible grounds to oppose his nomination”, Hatch said in a newspaper article on Friday.
Absent any last-minute plot twist, Gorsuch appears poised to fill the seat kept vacant by Senate Republicans during the final 10 months of the Obama administration. And, to the extent this might be telling, one gay male friend said Gorsuch “didn’t skip a beat” when he told Gorsuch he was gay.
It’s up to the committee’s Democrats to make sure Gorsuch does not get away with dodging questions in this fashion. So instead of approving or rejecting the nominee, the committee will usually report the nomination favorably, unfavorably or without recommendation.
But it is also a sign of Gorsuch’s profile and mainstream credibility.
McGarity argues that another switch could be coming, because environmental groups, many of whom would have supported greater power for the EPA in the past, might reconsider their position in the current political climate.
Gorsuch never mentioned to his best friend, Michael Trent, that he’d been added to the list of prospective justices Trump released last fall.
Accounts differ on whether it was a dare, goading or a gentle prod, but Gorsuch phones a woman he’d clicked with during a school dinner more than a year earlier – and she doesn’t remember him.
As a former 10th Circuit clerk for Chief Judge Tymkovich, I have had the good fortune of knowing Judge Gorsuch for a decade and counting him as friend.
“This case is a tale of two statutes”, the Affordable Care Act and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, wrote Gorsuch. The administrative agency at issue in both is the Board of Immigration Appeals, the primary function of which is just to decide the host of quasi-judicial immigration cases that must be adjudicated throughout the nation every year. Yet judges like Gorsuch believe in applying the law as it is written, not as they might wish it to be.
Cruz said, though, that one way or another, Gorsuch will be confirmed to the Supreme Court.
But some liberals and Democrats have warmed to Gorsuch, especially after he was reported to have criticized Trump over his regard for the judiciary.
Since his January 31 nomination by President Donald Trump, Gorsuch has maneuvered throughout Capitol Hill without any apparent missteps. “‘Documents provided by the Justice Department demonstrate you had a leading role in litigation and strategy over executive power and national security matters that have not yet been identified to the committee, ‘ Feinstein (D-Calif.) wrote to Gorsuch”. Then-judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg answered questions about some 30 already-decided Supreme Court cases when she was before the Judiciary Committee in 1993, but she had a long paper trail as a scholar, litigator and judge. It is time to confirm Neil Gorsuch.
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The committee will then have a second round of questioning, which might be as long as 20 minutes per senator (or almost seven hours total). They have a 52-48 majority, but Senate Leader Mitch McConnell could employ “the nuclear option”, changing Senate rules to lower the vote threshold.
