Trump fulfills promise with Gorsuch selection
I N nominating Judge Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court, President Trump selected exactly the sort of person his supporters were hoping for when they cast their ballots in November — a solid conservative with great legal credentials and a profound respect for the Constitution.
Gorsuch’s confirmation should be a slam dunk, but of course he will have to survive a ferocious opposition campaign by Democrats and progressive groups. The assaults began within minutes of Trump’s announcement Tuesday night.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Gorsuch “has repeatedly sided with corporations over working people, demonstrated a hostility toward women’s rights, and most troubling, hewed an ideological approach to jurisprudence that makes me skeptical that he can be a strong, independent judge.” In the House, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi also labeled Gorsuch as “hostile toward women’s rights,” which would come as a surprise to the nominee's wife and two daughters.
Those comments are allusions to Gorsuch’s concurring opinion, as a judge on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, in favor of Oklahoma Citybased Hobby Lobby’s effort not to be forced to offer employees certain types of birth control contraception, including abortifacients, as part of insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The Supreme Court later also ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby.
Progressives painted the Hobby Lobby case, and a similar lawsuit involving the Sisters of the Poor, as a crushing blow to women’s rights. Instead they both represented victories for religious liberties in this country, which have eroded in the past several years.
Gorsuch, 49, is a judge in the mold of the man he would replace, the late Antonin Scalia. Those who have studied his opinions note that they are straightforward, like Scalia. He also is considered a constitutional “originalist.” In 2016 he wrote, “Ours is the job of interpreting the Constitution. And that document isn’t some inkblot on which litigants may project their hopes and dreams.”
Those words should hearten conservatives who have grown weary of judges trying to shape the laws, instead of interpreting them. So too should Gorsuch’s statement Tuesday night that, “A judge who likes every outcome he reaches is very likely a bad judge, stretching for results he prefers rather than those the law demands.”
Senate Democrats’ opposition to Gorsuch will be fueled not just by his conservative leanings, but by anger and resentment over Senate Republicans refusing last year to consider former President Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to fill Scalia’s seat. Confirmation of Garland would have pushed the court’s balance leftward for many years. The addition of Gorsuch would give conservatives a 5-4 edge as the court weighs the consequential issues of the day.
Thus, the new Supreme Court nominee is stepping into a hornet’s nest of the first order. But we note what Robert Henry, who served on the 10th Circuit Court before becoming president of Oklahoma City University, had to say recently about his former colleague: “I think he’s a great candidate.” Henry, by the way, is a Democrat.
We commend Trump on his selection and wish Gorsuch well as he prepares to run this brutal gauntlet, one that should result in his confirmation.