“If you breathe air, drink water, eat food, take medicine, or in any other way interact with the courts, this is a very bad decision.”
— Nancy Pelosi
MY, MY, she do get excited, no? If you were on the fence about whether Neil Gorsuch should replace his like-minded fellow jurist on the nation’s top court, Nancy Pelosi’s statement should put you over that fence. Anybody who makes the decidedly former Speaker of the House that apoplectic can’t be all bad. Get him a robe, stat!
Only the most partisan, grudging and resentful of Washington politicians could find reasons to oppose this promotion for Neil Gorsuch. The main reason most do, even if they don’t say it on the record, is because they had an opportunity before the election to replace Antonin Scalia with one of their own, thus changing the makeup of the United States Supreme Court for years, but Hillary Clinton blew the election. So instead of crowding the court with lightweights who specialize in legalese and talk about the United States Constitution as a Living Document, whatever that means, they have in front of them another conservative, of all things, who might interpret the law instead of make it.
Not only that, but he’s young too. At all of 49 years old, he could follow in Antonin Scalia’s footsteps for decades. Gosh, if he were only Hispanic, that would be another reason for the Democrats to oppose him, much like they opposed Miguel Estrada 15 years ago when George W. Bush wanted to give him a seat on the federal Court of Appeals. But Miguel Estrada’s appointment would have taken away one of the brushes used to paint Republicans as anti-Hispanic, so Miguel Estrada’s nomination had to be defeated. And was. What a moment for the national Democratic Party.
Now comes Neil Gorsuch. Say what you will about this president, he doesn’t have a tendency to go with easy or political savvy choices. Looking at his Cabinet so far, and this nomination, he apparently values competence over “diversity” and smooth political sailing.
So how extreme is Neil Gorsuch? So extreme that he was approved by the United States Senate to be a federal appeals court judge in Denver. Without one vote against him.
But, some of our friends on the left and the New York Times argue, this was a stolen seat! That is, the last nominee didn’t get a fair hearing before the election. The best Republican response comes from a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee who said that Supreme Court vacancies in the middle of presidential elections should be put off until the voters speak, because that’s “what history supports [and] common sense dictates.”
That was Joe Biden speaking as the Judiciary chairman during a Republican administration. Not the same thing at all! (Because the parties have switched.)
Dispatches say that Judge Gorsuch knows the need to protect the role of religion in America, is a proponent of a “strict reading” of the Constitution, and is often compared to, yes, Justice Antonin Scalia. That, and he has the temperament of a judge. Call such temperament judicial. So naturally Democrats promise to make things difficult.
But as the current majority leader of the United States Senate, one Mitch McConnell, put it: “When Gerald Ford nominated John Paul Stevens, [Democrats] attacked Stevens as anti-woman. When Ronald Reagan chose Anthony M. Kennedy, they said Kennedy was unqualified. When George H.W. Bush put forward David Souter, they declared Souter a threat to minorities. The attacks seem ridiculous today, but they’re an important reminder that no matter who a Republican president nominates, the far left will say the same things.”
And they’ll say the same things this week. And next. The Gorsuch family should get used to it. Until he’s confirmed.
AND HE should be confirmed. And probably will be. And probably without the traditional 60 votes needed to stop a filibuster.
Why? Because a former majority leader named Harry Reid set it up this way. When the last president, a Democrat, couldn’t get nominees on the federal bench because the Senate Republicans demanded a 60-vote cloture, Harry Reid changed the rules so a simple majority could confirm nominees. All it would take now is for the current majority leader and his party to expand that to Supreme Court nominees. And they just might. Some folks, including certain editorial pages, noted that Harry Reid’s decision might come back to bite Democrats.
But what a gift this nominee could be to the country. Neil Gorsuch has written books on the moral and legal arguments for life, that is, against euthanasia and assisted suicide. He’s written opinions on the bench that backed companies who, for religious reasons, didn’t provide contraception to employees. Not only that, he’s from Colorado, a flyover state. And is said to raise chickens and goats, and enjoys fly fishing. Which might be as close to a good old boy as the nation’s top court could get. (If good old boys can get degrees from Columbia University and Harvard. Which, of course, they can.)
Irony of ironies, if you’re looking for a monument to Harry Reid, it might just come in a nameplate that will probably be made in the coming months:
Neil Gorsuch, justice, United States Supreme Court.