Seven Months Later it’s Clear: Trump Made Great Choice in Neil Gorsuch
“evidence that the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s legal thinking had triumphed”
There is still a “never-Trump” faction among conservatives, but for all their complaints about the president, there is one simple truth they cannot escape. If Trump hadn’t won the election, we wouldn’t have Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.
Gorsuch was an outstanding choice for the Supreme Court, and seven months in, people on the right are pleased.
Mark Sherman of the Associated Press:
Gorsuch establishes conservative cred in 1st year on court
More than 2,000 conservatives in tuxedos and gowns recently filled Union Station’s main hall for a steak dinner and the chance to cheer the man who saved the Supreme Court from liberal control.
Justice Neil Gorsuch didn’t disappoint them, just as he hasn’t in his first seven months on the Supreme Court.
“Tonight I can report that a person can be both a publicly committed originalist and textualist and be confirmed to the Supreme Court,” Gorsuch said to sustained applause from members of the Federalist Society, using terms by which conservatives often seek to distinguish themselves from more liberal judges.
The 50-year-old justice has been almost exactly what conservatives hoped for and liberals dreaded when he joined the court in April. He has consistently, even aggressively, lined up with the court’s most conservative justices. He has even split with Chief Justice John Roberts, viewed by some as insufficiently conservative because of his two opinions upholding President Barack Obama’s health law.
During arguments, Gorsuch has asked repeatedly about the original understanding of parts of the Constitution and laws, and he has raised questions about some long-standing court precedents, including the civil rights landmark ruling on “one person, one vote.
When Antonin Scalia died in 2016, the Obama administration wanted to fill the seat as quickly as possible. Republicans did the right thing by insisting on waiting until after the election.
Speaking of Scalia, Gorsuch is acutely aware of the legacy of the late justice. He’s a fan, too.
Ryan Lovelace writes at the Washington Examiner:
Neil Gorsuch: Scalia’s views on the Constitution aren’t ‘going anywhere on my watch’
Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch touted his confirmation to the high court as evidence that the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s legal thinking had triumphed.
Gorsuch spoke at a dinner Thursday night held by the Federalist Society in honor of Scalia at Union Station in Washington, D.C., and said the jurisprudential philosophies of originalism and textualism popularized by Scalia had emerged victorious.
“Tonight I can report that a person can be both a publicly committed originalist and textualist and be confirmed to the Supreme Court of the United States,” Gorsuch said. “Originalism has regained its place at the table … textualism has triumphed … and neither one is going anywhere on my watch.”
It would be nice if the “never-Trump” wing of American conservatism would give the president some credit for this. It doesn’t end with Gorsuch either. He was just the beginning.
Jake Novak writes at CNBC:
Congress has handed Trump a historic presidential victory
Consider that as of November 3rd, 13 Trump nominees to the courts have been confirmed this year. The big name is Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, but we also have eight new federal appeals court judges, and four new U.S. district court judges. President Trump has now already surpassed the last four presidents’ records for first-year judicial confirmations. And he’s even tied President Ronald Reagan number of appeals court confirmations in year one.
But this isn’t just about sheer numbers, it’s about ideology too. While President Trump and conservatives have diverged in matters of policy several times over the past year, the judicial nomination process is decidedly not one of them. The nominees sent to the Senate from the White House are more conservative and even younger than what we saw during President George W. Bush’s two terms in office.
None of this would have been possible had Hillary won.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
I am so happy about this. It’s such a simple principle: don’t legislate from the bench. And we almost lost it totally, to people who put their power above that principle which they disdain.
Mike, thanks for the post.
…and the #NeverHillary dividends just keep on coming!
I set aside my reservations about Trump and voted for him for this reason. He has met and exceeded my hopes on judicial appointments. Well done, Mr. Trump.
“It would be nice if the “never-Trump” wing of American conservatism would give the president some credit for this.”
I can’t think of any of the critics of T-rump who have NOT given him credit for this. This includes me.
I CAN think of any number of T-rump suckers who CANNOT give the miserable McConnell credit for BOTH blocking a Barracula nominee and pushing Gorsuch through.
–> McConnell credit for BOTH blocking a Barracula nominee and pushing Gorsuch through. <–
I am not a fan of the GOPe, but McConnell deserves alot of credit for doing the 'right' thing.
the GOPe had been relegated to just being the lapdogs of the (D)'s.
If you think that anyone else besides Cruz or Trump had won the 2016 presidency (and at the time Trump was not seen by the #NeverTrump to act as a constitutionalist) that a Gorsuch type would be nominated let alone seated to SCOTUS, you are mistaken.
Trump is more in the mold of a libertarian non politician, having seen how far down the hole the USA had fallen, wanted to strengthen the USA – HE HAS SUCCEEDED.
and as much as you disdain him, Donald John Trump is a patriot.
McConnell and the GOPe need to retire, but until they do, they need to give DJT their loyalty (which #NeverTrump scum will not do).
Perhaps you confuse discontent with McConnell for a universe of other “sins” with refusal to give him credit for blocking His Imperial Executiveness’ appointment and completing the Harry Reid elimination of today’s faux version of the filibuster for judicial nominations.
Yes he did those things. He also encouraged Democrats to vote in an Open Republican Primary, he spent about $12 million attempting to get Strange across the finish line in the Kentucky Republican Primary. He is an utter failure as the “face” of the Republican Party in the Senate, absolutely unable/unwilling to effectively communicate for the Party.
The worst thing that McConnell has done is to help Tyrant Obama the Liar ram his “Help Iran Build Nuclear Weapons and ICBMs” treaty through the Senate. He could have easily killed it by asserting that it was a treaty and holding the vote on ratification.
He did help, but Bob Corker was a bigger culprit by introducing a bill which greased the way for clearing the Congress.
In my opinion that was McConnel’s finest moment and nothing can take that away from him. I admit I was very surprised (and, obviously pleased) that McConnell did not fold.
I only wish that McConnell would find more of that courage.
rags rote:
I can’t think of any of the critics of T-rump who have NOT given him credit for this. This includes me.
Are you finally admitting that Trump was a better choice than Hillary, or are you claiming that she would have made a similar appointment?
What? No reply from Rags?
Highly unusal..Cat must have ate his mouse.
“I can’t think”
The only true statement you’ve made.
As per your usual, instead of giving simple credit to the premise of the article, you have to find some way to minimize the Trump contribution.
The only cult is the nevertrump idiots like you, fortunately marginalized by the truth.
McConnell deserves credit for holding the line. President Trump gets the credit for Gorsuch.
Trump is, and will remain, the most conservative President we’ve had at least since Reagan.
Blast it, there’s no “like post” button!
I voted against Hillary far more than I voted for Trump, but I’m pleased with his appointments so far. Even John Roberts was a doubtful appointment, given his preference for stare decisis. Trump seems to be setting a higher standard.
Yes. We are all thankful that the vile, venal witch who should be in prison already will never be potus.
We all agree that justice Gorsich on the supreme court was only possible due to a Trump victory.
Yet I read the AP, Examiner, and Mr. LaChance’s post, but learned nothing about what Gorsich has actually accomplished during his 1st year on the scotus bench.
No doubt the good professor has detailed that record somewhere on this blog, but it’s curious that 3 seperate reports failed to explain, ever so briefly, why Gorsuch has proved to be the great conservative hope at scotus.
Ok. I’m done being a grump, here. I’ll go out and yell at kids on my lawn…
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1&biw=1280&bih=590&ei=z4UdWpT3K-j_0gL744uoDQ&q=cases+which+Gorsuch+heard+on+the+scotus+bench&oq=cases+which+Gorsuch+heard+on+the+scotus+bench&gs_l=psy-ab.12…35391.104749.0.111928.19.19.0.0.0.0.330.1768.12j3j0j1.16.0….0…1c.1.64.psy-ab..3.0.0….0.JxHPMdWbw8o
The “hope” is based on his record as a Circuit Court of Appeals Judge. He has been on the SCOTUS since April of this year. He wrote the unanimous opinion for Henson v. Santander Consumer USA, Inc. (argued 18 Apr, decided 12 Jun). April was the end of term arguments for that SCOTUS Term, which somewhat limited Gorsuch’s involvement in cases.
In the current term, as of yesterday’s sitting, the Court has heard 20 cases, though only three opinions have been electronically issued, subject to revision/correction for the final print version.
Sort of hard to come up with a long list of accomplishments given that record. His time on the 10th Circuit is well documented if you wish to look.
Thanks, Edward, and 4th Amored. I’m familiar with a few of the cases from the circuit court years of Gorsuch, and I know how to use a search engine. Plus I recognize the last scotus term was short time for justice Gorsuch, but when the tagline of this blog post is “evidence that the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s legal thinking….” there should be some, you know, evidence.
Just saying….
I noted a new attempt arising, likely by a Never Trumper, to puncture the Gorsuch goodwill. A person commenting on an article elsewhere about the failure of the SCOTUS to agree to review two Second Amendment cases (Kolbe v. Hogan and Norman v. Florida). The person claimed that Gorsuch voted against granting review in these two cases. As SCOTUSblog notes that no comments were issued with the denial of Certiorari and that the vote was N/A, I don’t know how anyone would know how Gorsuch voted. Given that some months ago both Thomas and Gorsuch made known their displeasure at refusal to review in the Peruta case, it seems like NeverTrump disinformation to me.
It takes 4 votes on the Court to review a case. The left starts out with 4 votes guaranteed against review, on any 2nd Amendment case which was decided in their favor. After that, all it would take is for Kennedy to say “I don’t want to deal with this in my last year”, that gets to 5 against review, and then Roberts could easily think “why take a case that pisses Kennedy off? It could go 5-4 against the conservative wing.” And it easily could. That’s 6 against review.
And then it would just take Roberts talking to Gorsuch, Alito, and Thomas, saying “listen, the Court is too fragile for us to risk this kind of case now” and you easily get all 9 voting against review.
I’ll wait and see what Gorsuch does in the next couple of years. After all, it is always the “conservative” justices, like Roberts, who weasel for political reasons.
As to the two 2nd Amendment cases which the SCOTUS denied, Norman was already decided, correctly, by the SCOF and that decision was verified by both the US District Court and the US appellate court. It would not have changed in a neutral SCOTUS. Kolbe is a different matter. Kolbe dealt with the banning of various types of rifles and magazines, by the state of Maryland, for a highly contested “public safety” reason. This case should have been heard, for two reasons. The first is as it deals directly with potential infringements upon the 2nd Amendment right to self defense and second is to clarify the language of Heller, which should be done by the originating court, the SCOTUS. If allowed to stand, the SCOTUS will eventually have to visit it as it opens the door to limiting the ammunition capacity and weapon functionality to the point where every law abiding citizen could be restricted to carrying six-shot revolvers and rifles with a five shot magazine. And, this is likely to happen in certain jurisdictions.
But, refusing 2nd Amendment cases has been the norm for the SCOTUS since McDonald. Politically, the conservatives on the court do not want to deal with these cases. at all. Even the originalist icon, Anton Scalia weaseled out in both Heller and McDonald and allowed that there is a “clause” in the 2nd Amendment which allowed the government(s) to infringe upon the ownership and possession of firearms by enacting “reasonable restrictions” [apparently it was written in invisible ink and is only visible to high ranking jurists and the court refuses to address what constitutes such “reasonable restrictions, beyond the examples in Heller].
So, the jury is still out on Gorsuch, though he is far better than any liberal jurist.
I’m a little whiplashed from the 2A stuff the court didn’t take up yesterday; sends a signal to states and cities to ban everything.
i’m with Andy: get back to me when SCOTUS puts a spike in all the anti-2A laws being challenged.
until then, i don’t see enough to get excited about to generate more than a “meh” of enthusiasm on my part.
not that they aren’t good law, just that they’re window dressing on a still sinking ship.
The jury’s still out on Gorsuch. Most S.Ct. Judges try not to embarrass the man who appointed them.
Even David Souter wasn’t a flaming liberal until G HW Bush was out of office.
And Gorsuch is so young that he could very easily evolve or progress or whatever. Roberts, famously, proved to be a dud nomination.
Exactly… just because he’s not demanding the constitution be tossed doesn’t make him great.
Robert’s legacy is one thing and only one thing.
While still an adherent of religious superstition, at least Gorsuch isn’t just another Roman Catholic or Jew.