The Hill – by LYDIA WHEELER AND JORDAN FABIAN
President Trump on Tuesday selected Neil Gorsuch to succeed Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, setting up a nasty confirmation battle with Senate Democrats stung over the GOP blockade against former President Obama’s pick.
Trump named Gorsuch, a well-respected conservative who sits on the Colorado-based 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, after a drama-packed day that resembled the president’s former reality show “The Apprentice.”
Trump said he has promised to nominate a judge who respected the law and loved the Constitution.
“Millions of voters said this was the single most important issue to them and I am a man of my word and will do what I say, something the American people have been asking of Washington for a very long time,” Trump said.
Trump appeared to relish in the spectacle of the event.
After narrowing his list of 21 picks to Gorsuch and Judge Thomas Hardiman of the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, both men came to Washington, D.C., giving the appearance that either could be picked.
A crowd of Republican stars filled the White House’s East Wing, including Speaker Paul Ryan (Wis.) House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.). Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas), Ben Sasse (Neb.) and Mike Lee and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (Iowa) were among the GOP office holders on hand.
Members of Trump’s family, including Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., and his closest political observers were also in attendance, adding to the showmanship.
“Was that a surprise? Was it?” Trump asked after Gorsuch and his wife joined him on the podium.
He smiled before turning to the couple to shake their hands before inviting Gorsuch to take the podium.
As his nomination now moves forward to the Senate for consideration, Gorsuch said he looks forward to speaking with members from both sides of the aisle to answer their questions and hear their concerns.
“I consider the United States Senate the greatest deliberative body in the world and I respect the important role the Constitution affords it in the confirmation of our judges,” he said.
“I respect too the fact that in our legal order that it is for Congress not the courts to write new laws. It is the role of judges to apply not alter the work of the peoples’ representatives.”
A judge, he said, who likes every outcome he reaches is very likely a bad judge.
If confirmed by the Senate, Gorsuch would fill out a court split evenly between conservatives and liberals, with Justice Antonin Kennedy, an appointee of President Reagan, often casting the swing vote.
A Denver native, Gorsuch was appointed to the appeals court by President George W. Bush in 2006. He served as a law clerk for the late Justice Byron White and Justice Anthony Kennedy in the early 1990s.
In 2013, Gorsuch joined the appeals court in siding with the craft store chain Hobby Lobby and Christian bookstore chain Mardel Inc. in its challenge of ObamaCare’s mandate that requires employer health care plans to cover birth control.
In a concurring opinion in the case, Gorsuch said it was “not for secular courts to rewrite the religious complaint of a faithful adherent, or to decide whether a religious teaching about complicity imposes ‘too much’ moral disapproval on those only “indirectly” assisting wrongful conduct.”
“Whether an act of complicity is or isn’t ‘too attenuated’ from the underlying wrong is sometimes itself a matter of faith we must respect,” he wrote.
The Supreme Court upheld that decision in a 5-4 vote.
At 49, Gorsuch would be the youngest member of the court — a major consideration for Trump, who wants his picks to potentially remain on the bench for decades. Supreme Court justices receive lifetime appointments.
Gorsuch is likely to face a tough confirmation battle, though he was seen as a less provocative choice for the court than Bill Pryor, the circuit judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Pryor was a favorite of outside conservative groups, but his controversial views might have made it difficult for Democrats to avoid filibustering him. He has argued that gay people should be prosecuted for having sex, and that abortion should be outlawed including in cases of rape.
Like Pryor, Gorsuch is seen as an “originalist,” someone who attempts to interpret the Constitution as it was written at the time. And he has won bipartisan support in past confirmation battles.
Gorsuch was confirmed to the appeals court by a voice vote in 2006 after he was unanimously reported out of committee with praises from the late Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican who became a Democrat after Obama was elected.
Like Gorsuch, Trump’s runner-up is another young conservative who would have likely pleased GOP members. Hardiman severs on the Third Circuit alongside Trump’s sister Judge Maryanne Trump Barry and has a record of defending the Second Amendment.
But Trump may have another chance to pick Hardiman in the future. Three of the court’s liberal justices, two of which are in their 80s, could retire on his watch.
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) has promised to raise procedural objections to any Supreme Court nominee from Trump, meaning Gorsuch will likely need 60 votes.
“The most fundamental thing that must be understood about tonight’s announcement is that this is a stolen seat,” Merkley (D-Ore.) said in a statement Tuesday night.
“This is the first time in American history that one party has blockaded a nominee for almost a year in order to deliver a seat to a President of their own party. If this tactic is rewarded rather than resisted, it will set a dangerous new precedent in American governance.”
In a statement following the announcement, Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the Senate must insist on 60 votes to confirm Gorsuch — the same bar set for President Obama’s nominees.
“The burden is on Judge Neil Gorsuch to prove himself to be within the legal mainstream and, in this new era, willing to vigorously defend the Constitution from abuses of the Executive branch and protect the constitutionally enshrined rights of all Americans,” he said.
“Given his record, I have very serious doubts about Judge Gorsuch’s ability to meet this standard.”
But it is unclear whether Democrats at large will back a filibuster. Republicans have 52 seats in the Senate, meaning they need eight Democratic votes to break a filibuster. Ten Democrats are up for reelection in 2018 in states won by Trump in the presidential race. It may be difficult for them to filibuster a nominee such as Gorsuch — though they will be under tremendous pressure from liberal groups to do so.
Democrats remain bitter over the GOP’s treatment of Merrick Garland, who Obama nominated to succeed Scalia. Senate Republicans refused to give Garland a vote or a hearing, arguing the decision on replacing Scalia should be made by the next president.
The GOP’s gamble meant it had to win the White House to prevent a liberal justice from being added to the Supreme Court, and that’s what happened with Trump’s surprise win over Democrat Hillary Clinton.
The fact that the new justice will replace Scalia is significant to both sides.
It raised the stakes for Republicans in 2016, as a liberal justice would have shifted the court to the left.
The stakes for Democrats in 2017 are somewhat lower, since Gorsuch would replace a conservative in Scalia. That could be another factor in the decision by many Democrats over whether to join a filibuster.
At the same time, the nation’s politics are polarized as never before, and Trump’s administration is embroiled in controversy over a flurry of executive orders, including one to move forward with his long-promise wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and another banning travel to the United States by people from seven Muslim nations.
If Democrats were to block Gorsuch, Republicans would face the choice of whether to change the Senate rules under the so-called nuclear option so that Supreme Court nominees can be approved with a simple majority vote.
Gorsuch is a graduate of Harvard Law who like Scalia is known for making colorful comments in his opinions. A published author, Gorsuch wrote “The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia” in 2006 arguing against laws to legalize the practice.
He’s the son of the late Anne Burford, who became the first female head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and was one of the most controversial appointees of the Reagan administration.
As The Washington Post noted in her obituary in 2004, Burford cut her agency’s budget by 22 percent, believing it was too big, too wasteful and too restrictive of a business. She was forced to resign after just 22 months on the job in the midst of a scandal over the mismanagement of a $1.6 billion program to clean up hazardous waste dumps.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/316853-trump-taps-neil-gorsuch-for-supreme-court
Trump probably didn’t know who Neil Gorsuch was a week ago.