Neil Gorsuch has been nominated by President Trump to become the next Supreme Court Justice. Assuming approval by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Gorsuch would fill the seat vacated by the passing of Antonin Scalia. Gorsuch is by all accounts an extremely qualified candidate, having earned his JD from Harvard, DPhil from Oxford, and serving as Judge of the US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit for over a decade. Furthermore, at 49 years of age, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) nominee would be in a position to serve on the nation’s highest court for decades.
The nomination of Gorsuch; however, is not without controversy. Gorsuch has strong conservative learnings on a variety of issues, especially gay marriage, euthanasia/assisted suicide, & abortion, while also being a firm proponent of originalism & textualism (Gorsuch interprets the Constitution literally, as the framers intended when it was enacted).
Basically, Gorsuch is going to be Scalia 2.0, with many analysts projecting that he will be vote even more conservatively than Scalia. Furthermore, this seat was supposed to have gone to a more liberal judge until a recent Republican Hail Mary, also known as Donald J. Trump, worked out well for their partisan interests...
Some background
Senate Republicans made the less-than-kosher, but not illegal move of refusing to hold a nomination hearing for Merrick Garland, Obama’s nominee to replace Antonin Scalia after he passed back in February of 2016.
Yes, this deliberate delay illustrated a key problem with overly partisan tactics in the American political system. However, the ploy worked perfectly, and now, the Republican Party has a stranglehold on power after being declared a fractured entity in need of soul-searching for the past few years. Case in point: the nomination of Gorsuch is a double blow for the Dems: their guy got shafted and the GOP’s guy got the nod.
Advice for Democrats
Democrats should accept their reality and not attempt to block the nomination of Gorsuch for two reasons:
1. It won’t work. The party provided such an insufficient message to their constituencies that they have lost control of both houses of the legislative, as well as the executive branch. This fundamental failure has now set them up to lose control of the third and final branch.
Now, we have Donald Trump, a reality TV star, running our nation. Poke the bear and he is only going to burn you further.
2. It’s not in their partisan interest. Anthony Kennedy, the most moderate justice who would act as the decisive swing vote in closely divided cases, may resign if Democrats impede Gorsuch's nomination. SCOTUS experts predict that vindictive action pursued by Democrats would push Kennedy to retire. If Trump gets the chance to nominate a second justice then Democrats would find themselves in an even bigger hole. Attempts to impede the nomination, which won’t work anyway, will create an environment that adds more fuel to the purge of liberal perspective from the judiciary.
Bottom-line
Gorsuch stated in an interview with the National Review that it is not the job of the judicial branch to further social causes. In fact, the only true asset of the judiciary, and the reason for the framers of the Constitution created it, is its independence from politicization. Therefore, the continued politicization of the judicial branch is something that Gorsuch believes is eroding the ethos of the SCOTUS.
Yes, the man holds firm conservative beliefs. However, Gorsuch has proven that his strongest conviction is to uphold the rule of law, regardless of partisan positions. The former 10th Circuit judge made this clear when he ruled in favor of Colorado's mandate that the state's largest utilities get 30% of their power supply from renewable energy, a divergence from conservative energy policy.
Judge Gorsuch is a disciple of the law who can act as a balance against Trump's rash actions; something that all Americans, especially Democrats, desire.
