Neil
Gorsuch nominated by Donald Trump to fill supreme court vacancy
Known
for his firm conservative views, Gorsuch could tip the court’s
balance on hot-button issues such as abortion, voting rights and
religious equality
Tom McCarthy, Lauren
Gambino and Ben Jacobs
Wednesday 1 February
2017 01.04 GMT
President Donald
Trump has nominated circuit court judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the
vacant seat on the US supreme court, setting up a showdown with
congressional Democrats and activists over a pick that could shape
the ideological bent of the court for a generation.
Gorsuch, 49, the
youngest supreme court nominee in 25 years, was among a group of
federal judges reported in recent weeks to be on Trump’s shortlist.
A strict adherent of judicial restraint known for sharply-written
opinions and bedrock conservative views, Gorsuch, a Colorado native,
is popular among his peers and is seen as having strong backing among
Republicans generally.
The nomination
landed at a moment of sharply-increasing alarm amongst progressives
that the Trump administration plans to pursue extremist policies on
core questions likely to come before the court, from religious
equality to abortion rights, voting rights, access to healthcare,
LGBT rights, anti-discrimination protections and more.
Announcing his pick
in the White House’s East Room, Trump described reading Gorsuch’s
writings “closely”, as Gorsuch stood next to Trump listening with
a fixed expression of earnest concern, holding his wife, Louise, in
one arm.
“I can only hope
that both Democrats and Republicans can come together for once for
the good of the country,” Trump said.
Some prominent
Senate Democrats immediately denounced Gorsuch as “unacceptable”
and “extreme”. But it was unclear if there would be sufficient
support to mount a filibuster and force an historic showdown over the
nomination and Senate procedure.
“Make no mistake,
Senate Democrats will not simply allow but require an exhaustive,
robust, and comprehensive debate on Judge Gorsuch’s fitness to be a
supreme court justice,” said Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer
said in a statement.
If Democrats refuse
to support Gorsuch, Republicans could decide to change the Senate
rules to confirm him. But many Republicans are wary of this move, and
are hopeful vulnerable Democrats will come around.
Republicans were
effusive in their praise of Gorsuch, calling him “highly
qualified”, “universally respected” and, above all,
“mainstream”. “There’s nothing not to like about Neil
Gorsuch,” said Jeff Flake of Arizona. Even more enthusiastic praise
came from Ben Sasse of Nebraska who told the Guardian that Gorsuch
“is the kind of person that the founders envisioned sitting on the
supreme court”.
Many Democrats are
particularly bitter about the confirmation process after Republicans’
refusal last year to consider the nomination of circuit court judge
Merrick Garland, Obama’s selection to replace Scalia. Senate
majority leader Mitch McConnell argued at the time that it would be
inappropriate for a departing president – 11 months remained in
Obama’s term – to make such a significant and long-term
appointment.
“This is a stolen
seat being filled by an illegitimate and extreme nominee, and I will
do everything in my power to stand up against this assault on the
Court,” said Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon who has
said he is committed to blocking the nominee.
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The Democratic
National Committee said Gorsuch’s nomination “raises some very
serious questions” about whether he would be an independent and
impartial justice, and noted that Trump’s litmus test for a nominee
was a person who is “pro-life” and would overturn Roe v Wade.
Trump’s nominee
has the potential to tip the court one way or the other on important
questions. If confirmed, Gorsuch would return the court to nine
justices, filling a seat left vacant since the death of Justice
Antonin Scalia in February 2016.
Working for the last
year with an even number of justices, the court issued split 4-4
decisions on high-stakes questions such as the protection of
undocumented immigrants and the health of public unions, leaving
lower court rulings in place.
The next justice to
be confirmed may break such ties, giving new strength to the court’s
conservative bloc, which could be further buttressed by future Trump
nominations in the case of the retirement or death of a justice. One
of the four liberal-leaning justices on the court, Ruth Bader
Ginsburg, turns 84 in March. Justice Anthony Kennedy, a centrist on
the court who has sometimes split tie votes for the progressive wing,
is 80 years old.
Trumps nomination
of Neil Gorsuch would fill a seat left vacant since the death of
Justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016. Photograph: Brendan
Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
Gorsuch’s track
record as a judge on the US court of appeals for the 10th circuit
does not shed obvious light on how he might rule as a supreme court
justice on hot-button topics such as abortion and LGBT rights. He is
the author of a book about euthanasia in which he writes, “to act
intentionally against life is to suggest that its value rests only on
its transient instrumental usefulness for other ends.”
Ideological strands
running through Gorsuch’s appeals court rulings would seem likely
to endear him to congressional Republicans and Trump’s conservative
base. He has shown himself to be solicitous to claims of religious
exemptions from the law, to gun rights claims and to the prosecution
of death penalty cases.
Gorsuch did get
praise from some Democrats. Neal Katyal, a former solicitor general
in the Obama administration wrote in an editorial for the New York
Times entitled “Why Liberals should back Neil Gorsuch” that
Trump’s nominee was an “extraordinary judge and man”.
During Trump’s
announcement, Gorsuch addressed the crowd briefly, declaring himself
“honored and humbled” and promising to be a “faithful servant
to the constitution and laws of this great country” and paying
tribute to the principles of partiality, independence, collegiality
and courage.
“A judge who likes
every outcome he reaches is very likely a bad judge,” Gorsuch said,
“stretching” for rulings he desires instead of reading the law on
the page.
Before he left the
lectern, Trump sought confirmation that his primetime announcement
had gone over as planned.
“So was that a
surprise?” he said. “Was it?”
Gorsuch is a former
clerk for Justice Kennedy, and some conservative analysts theorize
that he could assert a rightward influence on the centrist Ronald
Reagan nominee.
Chuck Schumer had
said he would filibuster Trump’s pick if he was outside the
“mainstream”. On Tuesday night, he said he had “serious doubts”
that Gorsuch would prove himself to be within the “legal”
mainstream. Others used similar language, with House minority leader
Nancy Pelosi saying on CNN that Gorsuch is a “very hostile
appointment” and “outside the mainstream”.
But a Democratic
blockade seemed unlikely after Dick Durbin, the number 2 ranking
Democrat in the Senate, issued a statement calling for a floor vote
on Gorsuch.
“I will meet with
Judge Gorsuch and support a hearing and a vote for him—both of
which were denied to an eminently qualified nominee presented by
President Obama,” Durbin said in a statement.
Under current Senate
rules, which require 60 votes for a supreme court confirmation,
Gorsuch would need to win the support of multiple Democrats, who
count 48 Senate caucus members to the Republicans’ 52.
If the Democrats
follow through with a filibuster, however, those rules could change.
The previous Democratic leadership of the Senate changed the rules to
require fewer votes for the confirmation of most executive nominees,
and the current Republican leadership could make an additional change
to the rules. McConnell earlier had vowed to confirm Trump’s
nominee.
White House press
secretary Sean Spicer downplayed the looming threat of an
all-consuming political brawl over Trump’s nominee, telling
reporters on Tuesday that he believed the Senate would reach the
60-vote threshold required to confirm supreme court appointees.
Republicans
dismissed any lingering hard feelings from the Senate’s refusal to
hold hearings on Garland. “I think that’s a bogus argument”
said Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. “I thought it was a bit
unfair when you look through the history of the country when a
vacancy occurs in the last year of a sitting president and the
primary process is almost over ... if that’s the reason they use,
it’s a bogus reason.
Interest groups
across the political spectrum will spend millions on a public
campaign to legitimize or tear down a supreme court nominee. Already,
conservative groups are running ads to pressure Senate Democrats in
red states into siding with Republicans over the nominee.
A fly-fishing
enthusiast and skier who lives outside Boulder, Colorado, Gorsuch
lived in Washington DC as a boy, after his mother Anne Gorsuch
Burford was appointed by Reagan to lead the Environmental Protection
Agency. After graduating from Columbia University, Gorsuch, who is
said to have “an inexhaustible store of Winston Churchill quotes”,
went on to Harvard Law school and attended Oxford University on a
Marshall scholarship. He worked as a corporate lawyer in Washington
for a decade before his appointment to the circuit court by George W
Bush in 2006, a post to which the Senate confirmed him by voice vote.
The supreme court is
currently in recess and is scheduled to reconvene for conference on
17 February.
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