Nominee keeps his own counsel on hot topics
Tells Senate panel: No return to ‘horse and buggy days’
WASHINGTON — Assured of support from a majority of Republicans, Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch wrapped up two days of Senate questioning Wednesday to glowing GOP reviews but complaints from frustrated Democrats that he concealed his views from the public.
Gorsuch, a federal appeals court judge in Denver, refused repeated attempts to get him to talk about key legal and political issues of the day.
But he did tell Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who worried that Gorsuch would vote to restrict abortion, that “no one is looking to return us to horse and buggy days.”
The Supreme Court itself threw one surprise Gorsuch’s way when it ruled unanimously Wednesday in a case involving learning-disabled students, overturning a standard for special education that Gorsuch had endorsed in an earlier case on the same topic.
The decision prompted sharp questions from committee Democrats.
“Why in your early decision did you want to lower the bar so low?” Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois asked.
Gorsuch said he was bound by an even earlier decision on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and said that any implication that he was against autistic children was “heartbreaking.”
“I was wrong, senator, I was wrong because I was bound by circuit court precedent,” Gorsuch said. “And I’m sorry.”
Later Wednesday, Durbin elicited another apology from Gorsuch. The senator asked about an email Gorsuch sent while working at the Justice Department in which he criticized lawyers at big firms who were representing Guantanamo detainees. The email, Gorsuch said, “was not my finest hour.”
Aside from a few uncomfortable moments, Gorsuch generally maintained the mix of earnest talk about respect for prior court decisions, a pledge for absolute independence — “when you put on the robe, you open your mind” — and folksy humor that led to lighthearted exchanges with Republicans.
But every time Democrats tried to draw him out on a range of serious issues, including abortion and gay rights, Gorsuch answered in the same way: “I have declined to offer any promises, hints or previews of how I’d resolve any case.”
Gorsuch similarly wouldn’t commit to a view on cameras in the Supreme Court, despite widespread support from senators on the Judiciary Committee.
He was sticking to the common practice of high court nominees to resist all requests to say how they feel about Supreme Court decisions.
Feinstein, the committee’s senior Democrat, summed up her colleagues’ frustration. “What worries me is you have been very much able to avoid any specificity like no one I have ever seen before,” Feinstein told Gorsuch. “And maybe that’s a virtue, I don’t know. But for us on this side, knowing where you stand on major questions of the day is really important to a vote ‘aye,’ and so that’s why we pressed and pressed.”
Republicans, on the other hand, couldn’t get enough of the Colorado native.
Sen. Orrin Hatch said he hadn’t seen a better nominee in 40 years in the Senate.
Later, Gorsuch had some flattering final words for the senators — who he hopes will soon vote for him.
Noting he’d spent the last two months on Capitol Hill meeting senators, Gorsuch said Wednesday, “I want to thank you — all of you, each and every one of you.”
A committee vote is expected April 3 and a Senate floor vote later that same week. Republicans control the Senate 52-48, so it would require eight Democrats to move Gorsuch past procedural hurdles that require 60 votes.