President Trump in January tapped Judge Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Judge Gorsuch’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee began Monday and concluded yesterday. If confirmed, the 49-year-old federal appeals court judge would be the Supreme Court’s first conservative addition in a decade.
The Senate hearings this week turned on the search for Judge Gorsuch’s judicial philosophy. Judge Gorsuch stressed his independence and defended the integrity of the federal judiciary during the Senate hearings. He also asserted his impartiality and reassured the committee members that he would not be swayed by political pressure, should he be confirmed.
Gorsuch was named judge to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in 2006 before his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Gorsuch was born in Denver, Colorado and is the son of Anne Gorsuch, who became in 1981 the first woman to head the Environmental Protection Agency. However, Anne Gorsuch resigned under pressure almost two years later after refusing to turn over subpoenaed documents.
Gorsuch had a conservative voice at Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was a classmate of Barack Obama. He joined a D.C. law firm specializing in complex litigation across a wide range of fields. He was named partner in 1998. Gorsuch completed his education with a doctorate in legal philosophy from Oxford University. He has established himself as an originalist and supporter of religious freedom in his opinions.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA) allowed Gorsuch to display his encyclopedic knowledge of the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent. On the other hand, Democrats probed his independence from President Trump and raised the issue regarding his allegiance to Roe v. Wade. However, Judge Gorsuch refused to be specific on this issue.
Democrats also pushed Gorsuch on the Voting Rights Act, gun rights, women’s rights, privacy, issues of campaign finance, and whether he would rule against President Trump’s travel ban, among several other issues. Gorsuch explained that it would be improper to give his views on cases that might come before him or to grade decisions made in the past.
Republicans indicated they intend to move quickly to confirm Gorsuch. Republican members on the Judiciary Committee hope to refer him to the full Senate on April 3 in order to have Gorsuch confirmed before Easter.
Many Democrats are still upset with the GOP’s treatment of President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Chief Judge Merrick Garland, who Republicans refused to consider at the time. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) said at a press conference last week that “Neil Gorsuch may act like a neutral, calm judge, but his record and his career clearly show he harbors a right-wing, pro-corporate, special-interest agenda.”
Schumer announced yesterday that Democrats will attempt to filibuster Judge Gorsuch’s nomination. Several other Democrats joined Senator Schumer saying they too are prepared to mount a filibuster. Such a partisan filibuster would be just the second time in U.S. history it was used to try to block a Supreme Court nominee.
“Judge Gorsuch was unable to sufficiently convince me that he’d be an independent check on a president who has shown almost no restraint from executive overreach,” Schumer said. “Second, he was unable to convince me that he would be a mainstream justice who could rule free from the biases of politics and ideology.”
Overcoming a filibuster requires 60 votes. Republicans have 52 seats in the Senate. If all of them back the nomination of Gorsuch, which is expected, they would still need eight members of the Democratic caucus to join them. Some Democrats on Thursday said they may be willing.
