The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Gorsuch’s criticism of Trump may be winning him Democratic support
WASHINGTON >> Senate Democrats sent mixed signals the day after Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch expressed concerns about President Trump’s attacks on the federal judiciary - a sign that the judge’s comments could attract some badly needed Democratic support.
“To whisper to a senator but to refuse to say anything public is not close to a good enough show on independence. So from my view, not a good start for Judge Gorsuch. Not a good start,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., speaking on the Senate floor.
But Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, struck a more positive note about Gorsuch’s remarks, which came in a meeting with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.
“I for one appreciated them,” Feinstein said. “I think he was being truthful as to how he felt about it. And that was very much appreciated.” She said she wanted Gorsuch to have a “fair hearing process.”
The comments highlighted the lingering uncertainty over a crucial question: What level of support will Gorsuch receive from the Democratic caucus?
Republicans hope that at least eight of them will break ranks to help his nomination clear procedural hurdles, if not support him outright. But that will be challenging, as Democrats have largely united against Trump in the first three weeks of his presidency and have signaled they intend to keep doing so.
In a private session with Blumenthal on Wednesday, Gorsuch called Trump’s criticism of federal judges “disheartening” and “demoralizing” - raising some Republicans’ hopes that he had separated himself from the president’s controversial posture in a way that could warm some Democrats to him.
“I think [Gorsuch’s] position is very, very positive” and his recent comments “show respect for what we all respect from the judiciary, in terms of independence. He’s established that, answered that question from the Democrats who were grasping at straws in the first place since they know he’s a mainstream judge,” said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
Injecting further uncertainty into the process: Trump on Thursday disputed Blumenthal’s account, even after it was confirmed by Gorsuch’s team.
Republicans are hoping to confirm Gorsuch by early April, and they have moved swiftly toward meeting that self-imposed target. Grassley said Thursday that he is considering holding Gorsuch’s confirmation hearings sooner than he had planned, in light of recent Democratic attempts to slow the confirmations of many of Trump’s Cabinet nominees.
“The fact that we see all of these stalling shenanigans could impact the necessity of moving it forward,” he said. “If we’re going to have the same game played on Gorsuch, that’ll be taken into consideration.”
Grassley said early to midMarch is now under consideration as a time frame, whereas he had been looking at mid- to late March a few weeks ago.
Several Senate Democratic officials called the White House’s aim of winning over a few Democrats for the Gorsuch nomination overly hopeful. They said that Gorsuch’s criticism of Trump’s comments was not going to suddenly change Democratic minds about whether to confirm him.
The officials said the party’s strategy moving forward is to further raise the bar as Gorsuch asserts his judicial independence. That means pressing Gorsuch to speak out more forcefully about Trump’s comments and to do so publicly rather than in private meetings. They expect Democratic senators to push Gorsuch on issues such as Trump’s temporary ban on entry to the United States for citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries and all refugees.