Trump Nominates Conservative Neil Gorsuch To Supreme Court

Fulfilling what was arguably his most consequential campaign promise, President Donald Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch, a federal appeals judge in Denver, to the Supreme Court seat of the late Antonin Scalia , who died last February.

The announcement during a prime-time broadcast Tuesday night, came amid a barrage of protests , some legal challenges and a shake-up at the Department of Justice over Trumps use of executive power to stop refugees and citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

Against that backdrop, questions about the courts independence and role as a check on the executive branch are sure to dominate Gorsuchs confirmation hearing, which will find Democrats on the offensive and under increasing pressure to block or deny the nomination outright much like Republicans obstructed the nomination of Merrick Garland , the highly respected appeals court judge President Barack Obama chose to fill the Supreme Court vacancy .

If confirmed, Gorsuch, 49, would bring to the bench a conservative record that will be forever measured against that of Scalia , a towering firebrand of legal conservatism whose death last year forced Trump to issue not one but two lists of potential nominees hed choose if elected. The lists largely assembled with the help of conservative brain trusts helped assuage supporters fears that Trump might not nominate judges who are conservative enough.

Conservatives need not worry. Gorsuch is an intellectual rising star a well-spoken and eloquent writer who enraptures Republican and Libertarian lawyers and law students who come to see him at conferences organized by the Federalist Society, a group that helped Trump put together his Supreme Court wish list.

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In his 10 years as a judge, Gorsuch has amassed a paper trail that, according to one analysis , finds him in close ideological alignment with Scalia based on such things as observance of the doctrine of originalism , citations to Scalias work and the judges propensity to write separately or dissent to further flesh out distinguishing views.

One key concurring opinion that earned Gorsuch high praise from conservative commentators was in an immigration case decided last year in which Gorsuch staked out a strong position against the administrative state and the way the Supreme Court has made it easier for agencies to interpret laws that judges are better suited to interpret.

Thats a problem for the judiciary, Gorsuch wrote in Gutierrez-Brizuela v. Lynch . And it is a problem for the people whose liberties may now be impaired not by an independent decisionmaker seeking to declare the laws meaning as fairly as possible the decisionmaker promised to them by law but by an avowedly politicized administrative agent seeking to pursue whatever policy whim may rule the day.

On abortion rights, an issue on which Trump is deeply indebted to religious and family-values voters who staunchly oppose Roe v. Wade Gorsuch doesnt exactly have a judicial record, even though he has written at length on the moral and legal complexities of legalizing assisted suicide . In his book on the subject, he examines Roe to make his case.