Armstrong Williams op-ed: Gorsuch, a judge for all seasons and ages

The United States Supreme Court is the crown jewel of our Constitution.  It is the steward of our most cherished liberties that are shielded from the whims of fleeting majority opinions:  religious liberty, freedom of speech, due process, the right to be left alone, the right to keep and bear arms, and the Great Writ of habeas corpus.  

Liberals would transform our Constitution anchored in the eternities of human nature into a document indistinguishable from a restricted railroad ticket good for this day and train only.  The Constitution would be amended by judicial decree in lieu of the political processes required by Article V.    

{mosads}The mainstream media is a megaphone for the liberals.  Having lost in the political arena, they seek refuge in the Supreme Court — primarily through the notorious “swing” vote of Justice Anthony Kennedy.  Here is one example of that justice’s creative approach to constitutional interpretation in Lawrence v. Texas: “Freedom extends beyond spatial bounds. Liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct. The instant case involves liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent dimensions.”  

Now imagine what America would be like if there were more Anthony Kennedy’s appointed to the court, which is what liberals covet.  To prevent that nightmare, conservatives must fight for Senate confirmation of President Donald Trump’s nominee Neil Gorsuch.

Judge Gorsuch, who currently sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, is a well accomplished jurist.  His intellectual mentor was the late Justice Antonin Scalia who interpreted the Constitution according to its text and meaning as intended by its architects.  Their safeguard against the risk of the Constitution’s antiquation was the amendment process enshrined in Article V.  They rejected Supreme Court Justices acting as Platonic Guardians to preside over the reduction of citizens to serfs.  

Bloomberg columnist Noah Feldman wrote in September: “…don’t expect much more on the Supreme Court during this election season. When the dust has settled, however, the Supreme Court will return to the front pages very quickly indeed, and the question of who will succeed Scalia will be one of the most pressing issues facing the new president, whoever it is.”

Well guess what? He was correct. But the mainstream media has attempted to ignore Judge Gorsuch’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearings by focusing instead on the possible collusion between President Trump and Russia although there has yet to be any convincing evidence of such a link. Instead of focusing on the nominee who will influence constitutional jurisprudence for decades, media outlets are attempting to distract us with “Fake News” by inflating the importance of the release of DNC authentic emails to Hillary Clinton’s stupendous electoral defeat.  

Gorsuch attended law school with President Obama.  He studied at Columbia and Oxford in Great Britain.  He clerked for two Supreme Court Justices, and served as a high level official in the United States Department of Justice.  He was unanimously confirmed as a United States Circuit Court Judge to the Tenth Circuit on July 20, 2006. He has labored for a decade as an appellate jurist and earned high praise from his colleagues and scholars.

His detractors misconceive the role of the judge,  They fault him for resisting the temptation to play Don Quixote to rescue damsels in distress by stretching the law to the breaking point.  He recognizes, in the words of immortalized Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in Missouri, Texas, and Kansas Ry v. May, that “it must be remembered that legislatures are ultimate guardians of the liberties and welfare of the people in quite as great a degree as the courts.”

Supreme Court Justices live for the ages through the constitutional precedents they establish.  Very few decisions are overruled.  If Judge Gorsuch is confirmed, his influence on the nation will far outlast President Trump’s tenure in the White House.  By temperament, experience, and accomplishments, Judge Gorsuch if perfectly suited to build on the trenchant and enlightened constitutional jurisprudence that earmarked Justice Scalia’s storied career.

If there have been better trained jurists to sit on the nation’s highest tribunal, they do not readily come to mind.  He should and will be confirmed by an overwhelming vote by the United States Senate before the Court’s October Term 2016 concludes.

Armstrong Williams served as an advisor and spokesman for Dr. Ben Carson’s presidential campaign. He is Manager and Sole Owner of Howard Stirk Holdings I & II Broadcast Television Stations and the 2016 Multicultural Media Broadcast Owner of the year. Listen to Mr. Williams on Sirius XM126 Urban View nightly 6:00-8:00pm EST. Follow him on Twitter @arightside.

The views of contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.