Gorsuch rolls court to the right
The Senate confirms Neil Gorsuch as the Supreme Court’s youngest justice.
WASHINGTON — After weeks of turmoil, the Senate confirmed Trump nominee Neil Gorsuch as the Supreme Court’s youngest justice Friday, filling a 14-month vacancy after the death of Antonin Scalia and restoring a rightward tilt that could last for years.
Gorsuch will be sworn in Monday and will quickly begin confronting cases of consequence, including one involving separation of church and state that the justices will take up in less than two weeks.
At 49, he is decades younger than several of the other justices — two are in their 80s and one is 78 — raising the possibility that President Donald Trump will have a chance to appoint more conservatives to a court that has been somewhat balanced in recent years.
Vice President Mike Pence was presiding as the Senate voted 54-45 in favor of Gorsuch, a veteran of Denver’s 10th U.S. Circuit of Appeals whose conservative rulings make him an intellectual heir to Scalia, who died in February 2016. Republicans blocked Barack Obama from filling the seat all last year.
The outcome was a major victory for Trump, his first big congressional win. And it was cause for celebration for conservatives, who have often seemed willing to forgive various Trump failings next to the chance to win this lifetime appointment to the most important court on the land.
“As a deep believer in the rule of law, Judge Gorsuch will serve the American people with distinction,” Trump said in a statement.
The judge won support from 51 of the chamber’s Republicans as well as three moderate Democrats up for re-election in states Trump won last fall: Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Donnelly of Indiana. GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia, who has been recovering from back surgery, did not vote.
Gorsuch’s name was on a list of potential choices Trump produced during the campaign, and was vetted by conservative groups including the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation.