Last night, President Donald Trump announced his nomination of 10th Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Despite Gorsuch being a wonderfully qualified candidate, we’re already hearing vows from the Left to obstruct his path to confirmation.
Senators may do so at their peril — especially those from states that went for Trump in the presidential race. To impede this nomination is to ignore the wishes of their constituents.
{mosads}As a candidate, Donald Trump was remarkably clear about the type of judge he would nominate if he became president. He took the unprecedented step of publicly identifying a pool of some 20 possible nominees from which he would make his selection. One of those potential nominees was Judge Gorsuch.
President Trump’s pledge to draw from this pool of conservative jurists—each one dedicated to maintaining the rule of law and protecting the constitutional rights of all Americans—wasn’t just a one-time announcement. It was a key element of his stump speech, repeated time and again throughout the campaign.
And it was a major reason he won the election. Millions of Americans wanted a Justice who would follow in the footsteps of the late, great Antonin Scalia, instead of a progressive yes-man to a Clinton administration.
You’d have a hard time finding a better successor for Scalia than Neil Gorsuch. It’s not just that he was good friends with Scalia, a man famous for befriending men and women of every political stripe.
More importantly, Judge Gorsuch shares Scalia’s dedication to upholding the rule of law. He believes in applying the law as it is written and as it was understood at the time it was enacted.
In other words, he believes that the law means what it says. This is a far cry from judges who gladly “interpret” laws in ways that happily coincide with their personal policy preferences, even though that runs counter to what the Founders or Congress intended.
Such “creative” jurisprudence invites chaos. In a world of Humpty Dumpty justice (“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean.”) the law — and people’s rights — can turn on the whim of a judge. Throughout his time on the bench, Judge Gorsuch has shown he respects the proper limits of judicial power. When deciding cases, he consistently leaves his personal views at home.
The Heritage Foundation has long advocated for judicial nominees who will follow the rule of law, respect the rights of all Americans, and uphold the Constitution as written. Judge Gorsuch fits the mold perfectly. Like Scalia, he is an ardent supporter of religious liberty, as his written opinions demonstrate in cases such as the Little Sisters of the Poor challenge to the Obamacare contraception mandate, and prisoners’ suits to exercise their rights freely.
As I argued through the Obama years, the Senate has the absolute Constitutional prerogative to advise the President regarding Supreme Court nominees and to give or withhold consent for confirmation. But Senators should have legitimate reasons for withholding consent.
It’s telling that, when Gorsuch was nominated to serve on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2006, the Senate confirmed the appointment by “voice vote.” That’s how well-regarded — and wholly uncontroversial — he was.
Yet today, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., insists that “The burden is on Judge Neil Gorsuch to prove himself to be within the legal mainstream and, …(g)iven his record, I have very serious doubts about (his) ability to meet this standard.”
Indeed, more than a few liberal senators declared their intention to filibuster President Trump’s nominee days before they even knew who that nominee would be! As Senator Ben Sasse, R-N.E., noted on a visit to the Supreme Court last night, protestors even had “fill-in-the-blank” signs.
That’s not assessing a nominee according to his or her legal expertise, work experience or even general fitness for office; that’s political grandstanding and manufactured outrage. The only consideration should be whether a Supreme Court justice will be faithful to the Constitution.
When the American people voted on Barack Obama’s successor, they selected Donald Trump and his choices for Supreme Court justices. It was a widely proclaimed package deal.
Now President Trump has followed through on his promise, nominating a conservative judge to replace a conservative judge. For the Left to whine about this is as unjustified as it is petulant.
Judge Gorsuch’s credentials for serving on the highest court are sterling. He is knowledgeable, fair, and level-headed—and cast from the same mold as the late Justice Scalia. And he is exactly the type of judge the American people said they wanted last November.
The Senate should cast aside party politics, abide by the wishes of the people and confirm him.
Jim DeMint is a former U.S. Senator from South Carolina and the president of The Heritage Foundation.
The views of contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.