Really, all you need to know is that the name wasn't Merrick Garland, and therefore whoever he is should be blocked at all costs because Republicans do not get to steal a Supreme Court nomination in order to promote a woman-hating originalist who maybe isn't as witty as Justice Antonin Scalia was.
But in case you wanted to know, Trump has nominated Judge Neil Gorsuch to wait many, many days before he gets past a filibuster in the Senate.
Judge Gorsuch, age 49, is an originalist and a textualist who is exactly what hard-line conservatives expect in a Supreme Court pick. He could sit on the Court for decades after a nomination at such a young age.
Politico reports:
“The real appeal of Gorsuch nomination is he’s likely to be the most effective conservative nominee in terms of winning over Anthony Kennedy and forging conservative decisions on the court,” said Jeffrey Rosen of the National Constitution Center. “He’s unusual for his memorable writing style, the depth of his reading and his willingness to rethink constitutional principles from the ground up. Like Justice Scalia, he sometimes reaches results that favor liberals when he thinks the history or text of the Constitution or the law require it, especially in areas like criminal law or the rights of religious minorities, but unlike Scalia he’s less willing to defer to regulations and might be more willing to second-guess Trump’s regulatory decision.”
Gorsuch is a favorite of legal conservatives because he has sharply questioned a three-decade old legal precedent that many on the right believe has given too much power to the regulatory state. The landmark 1984 Supreme Court ruling involving the Chevron oil company held that courts should defer to federal agencies’ reasonable interpretations of ambiguous federal laws.
In a ruling last August in an immigration case, Gorsuch questioned the wisdom of that doctrine, arguing that the meaning of the law is for judges to decide, not federal bureaucrats.
“Where in all this does a court interpret the law and say what it is?” Gorsuch asked in an extended digression on the subject. “When does a court independently decide what the statute means and whether it has or has not vested a legal right in a person? Where Chevron applies that job seems to have gone extinct.”
May he grow old gracefully waiting for confirmation. A stolen seat deserves no reward, and certainly no Democratic votes.
We're watching you, Democrats. 60 votes required to move his nomination for a vote. He should never, ever get that.
Update: Judge Gorsuch went above and beyond in a crusade against Planned Parenthood, suggesting he's a right-wing hardline ideologue who has no place on the United States Supreme Court.
