President Trump, picks Neil Gorsuch as Scalia's successor

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The entire GOP is pleased with this pick, he pretty much is a lot like Scalia

WASHINGTON — President Trump campaigned as a Washington outsider. But his first Supreme Court nominee, Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, has deep roots in the city and the establishment Mr. Trump often criticized.

Judge Gorsuch’s mother was a high-level official in the Reagan administration. He spent part of his childhood in Washington and practiced law here for a decade, at a prominent law firm and in the Justice Department.

And, like all of the current justices, Judge Gorsuch is a product of the Ivy League, having attended college at Columbia and law school at Harvard.

But there is no doubt about his conservative credentials. And if there is a justice whom he most resembles, it is the one whose seat he has been nominated to fill, Justice Antonin Scalia.

Judge Gorsuch, 49 — who was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, in Denver, by President George W. Bush — is an originalist, meaning he tries to interpret the Constitution consistently with the understanding of those who drafted and adopted it. This approach leads him to generally but not uniformly conservative results.

“Ours is the job of interpreting the Constitution,” he wrote in a concurrence last year. “And that document isn’t some inkblot on which litigants may project their hopes and dreams.”

Judge Gorsuch has not written extensively on several issues of importance to many conservatives, including gun control and gay rights. But he has taken strong stands in favor of religious freedom, earning him admiration from the right.

In two prominent cases, both of which reached the Supreme Court, he sided with employers who had religious objections to providing some forms of contraception coverage to their female workers.

Awesome, he's a religious wacko who doesn't believe in contraception. This is exactly what we needed. Thank you Trump! We can only hope that he has strong disdain for uppity women, gays, and minorities. I can imagine all the Trump voter's glee.

His resume is pretty damn impressive and it could have been a lot worse (like if Trump nominated Pryor).

He will get filibustered so hard his head will spin though lol.

He does believe in following the Constitution unlike some of the other Justices.

@JimB: Are you psyched JimB? Is this guy harsh rightwing enough for your personal tastes or were you hoping for more?

You're crazy, he maybe for Religious Freedom, but he also believes in protecting the Constitution. He's pretty much a Scalia 2.0

"the law … doesn’t just apply to protect popular religious beliefs: it does perhaps its most important work in protecting unpopular religious beliefs, vindicating this nation’s long-held aspiration to serve as a refuge of religious tolerance"

Neil Gorsuch, 2007

Can you give some examples? Which SC justice doesn't believe in following the Constitution?

Judge Gorsuch on the Record

• Judge Gorsuch joined a 2015 opinion rejecting arguments made by a transgender woman who was incarcerated that the Oklahoma Department of Corrections had violated her constitutional rights by denying her medically necessary hormone treatment and her request to wear feminine clothing.

• Judge Gorsuch has supported religious exemptions from laws based on ‘complicity’—the wrongheaded idea that adhering to the law makes the objector complicit in the allegedly sinful conduct of others. He troublingly described the issue in his 10th Circuit Hobby Lobby opinion as follows: ‘All of us must answer for ourselves whether and to what degree we are willing to be involved in the wrongdoing of others.’

• Judge Gorsuch has expressed disapproval of civil rights impact litigation, writing in 2005 that “American liberals have become addicted to the courtroom … as the primary means of effecting their social agenda on everything from gay marriage” to other issues. It is telling that Judge Gorsuch saves his criticism for “American liberals,” even as the U.S. Supreme Court routinely has heard conservative challenges to constitutionally protected rights.

not great, but it could have been worse.

Honestly I'm perfectly happy to watch the size of the supreme court shrink for the next 4-8 years as a punishment to republicans and a consequence for stealing Obama's nomination. In fact I will be more than happy to reward democrats with my vote for doing so.

the people need to have a say.

the senate needs to hold off on any confirmation hearings until the next presidential election.

Great pick for America. Glad to have stability go back to the Supreme Court!

So he values his own personal opinions over the constitution... great.

Well, obviously you're not. Yeppers, who needs a constitutionalist when a leftwing activist that pays no attention to precedent but simply rules based on their own personal beliefs would be a more thoughtful and practical pick (Sarcasm, of course). Hey, y'all gotta freebie already when Bush senior mistakenly picked David Souter and he turned out to be a hard leftwinger. So much so that he made sure he retired during a democrat's term so that he could be replaced by another leftist. Oops! We win some and lose some. Right now I'm watching Ginsberg and Breyer, 83 and 78. Hopefully Trump will get to be the one to replace them.

This is what politics has devolved into. People create their own realities. Scalia is known for being a constitutionalist, an originalist. But you know that and don't care.

I could say I'm a duck, that doesn't make me a duck.

I know the repeated claims that he's a constitutionalist, but his words and actions do not support it. Take what he said about Lawrence V. Texas for example

Today's opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct.... [T]he Court has taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the democratic rules of engagement are observed.

So imbued is the Court with the law profession's anti-anti-homosexual culture, that it is seemingly unaware that the attitudes of that culture are not obviously "mainstream"; that in most States what the Court calls "discrimination" against those who engage in homosexual acts is perfectly legal.

He clearly states that his reasoning is not based on the constitution but simply that he doesn't like the supposed immoral culture of it and thinks that the majority of the population being opposed to it as well is also a reason. Can you cite me the part of the constitution that says mob rule can get rid of peoples rights?

What's in the constitution specifically about homosexuality and culture that relates to that? Ya look to the constitution whenever you can but there's lots of stuff it doesn't cover but other forms of legal precedent does. And anyway, I have no idea what context those couple of paragraphs have been yanked from.

I personally was hoping for Pryor just cuz it gave me pleasure thinking how much that would piss off your side, lol. But I'll take this guy.

Giensberg

Which cases? Can you give us some examples of GINSBERG not following the constitution? Tell you what, we can do a quid pro quo. For every one you provide, even if youre wrong on it, ill give you a time Scalia obviously ignored our constitution.

I also want to add that he is a religious rights person, which the way its being applied is as anti-constitution as it gets. One could actually propose the idea that our nation was founded by people escaping this same implementation of "religious freedom".... by the same religious order i might add.

There is no such person on the Supreme Court named "Giensberg".

If you meant "Ginsburg", then by all means give me some examples of her not believing in the Constitution.

I didn't ask you to defend the claim that it's not unconstitutional to arrest people for their sexuality. I asked you to defend the arguments made by the so called constitutionalist.

What possible context could there be where claims about morality and mob rule are seen as constitutionalist arguments? If he's a constitutionalist then he shouldn't be bringing up his personal views on morality and mob rule FULL STOP.

On a similar note, I find it funny how when ever people criticise Scalia for ignoring his duties in order to push his own agenda, right wingers will always defend him by claiming that the only reason he's hated is simply because of the stances he took when in reality he's actually a really great guy. But if that were the case why despite him not being the only judge to rule against gay rights, does he get so much hate while the others pretty much get a free pass? It's pretty simple, because while the arguments made by the other judges weren't great, they didn't blatantly ignore the constitution like Scalia did.

You do know that if the dems obstruct, the reps will follow Reid's example, and nuke the filibuster, right?

Then, if or when one of the liberal justices croaks, Trump will get to tilt the court in a big way, with the dems not being able to stop it.

You might want to let this guy in and keep the 60 vote threshold intact. He succeeds Scalia, so his presence does not really change the make-up of the court.

I'm not convinced the cons will do that when they get to see firsthand what the minority can no longer do on a daily basis.

Edit. It's worth noting that republicans were promising to do the same thing if Hillary Clinton won. So I say ****-em.

Right because your long legal career makes that statement a valuable addition to this thread.

Scalia was probably one of the most brilliant legal minds in US and is recognized as such by most of his peers and his idea that the constitution doesn't grow over time is the only right conclusion.

As to the pick Gorsouch , not a bad one but it could have been better.

We've had this conversation before, if I can't criticise someone due to my lack of professional experience, then you can't praise anyone either since your understanding of law and the constitution is worse than anyone else on this forum. You're the guy that tried to argue that when a civil servant vows to uphold the law it is specific to the law at the moment they made the vow, meaning they can ignore changes made later that they don't like.

How can you possibly say he's great if you lack the education and experience to recognise whats good or bad?

So you disagree that Scalia is recognized by his peers as a brilliant legal mind. And I could not care less about your personal opinion since its worth nothing.

And as to the civil servant, Funny enough we are having that very thing happening now don´t we, with President Trump´s executive orders. Which remind me again what snowflakes and liberals say about that? and what i said back then was that religious believes should be respected no matter what religion. So try not to distort facts to much. After all we know how you snowflakes have it with "Alternative facts"

Last if you want to discuss my personal education, make a new thread. But i can say that i was lucky enough to be lectured by Scalia and know his expertise a lot better than you ever will.

@Jacanuk: People forget that Religious Freedom falls under the 1st Amendment that Scalia had defended in the past.

@FireEmblem_Man: Yeah, meaning just cause im Muslim you cant deny me a hotel room or breakfast.

We shouldn't even be having this conversation. It was Obama's job to put another justice on the court, and we all know that. Republicans broke the law to do this.

@Shmiity:

It's going to be real ironic when they repeal the filibuster to pass their pick.

This is a joke post, right? That is NOT Scalia's view. Scalia practiced originalism which is the exact OPPOSITE of what you claimed he did. His view was that the constitution was meant to be interpreted by the original words meant by the founding fathers. That is the opposite of the Constitution growing over time.

Do you mean irony or enraged sorrow and disgust?

They didn't break any laws. You're an extremist. I'm enjoying your tears though.

It's the sitting president's job to fill the seat, you know this.

It's weird that Biden said the opposite in the 90's. What law did they break?

If Democrats stall for too long Mitch might go nuclear and then Pryor can fill Ginsburg seat once she retires. Then "progressives" can truly swallow that cyanide pill once and for all.

Definitely irony. I'm not sure what else.

Bipartisanship is dead. Not sick, not temporarily weakened - it's dead.

And when bipartisanship is dead, I'm not sure the filibuster fills a productive role.

I'm not a fan of the constant whipping back and forth that is likely to occur, but maybe we can adjust to that.

It was known Trump would appoint someone conservative, this is no surprise. Given that, I don't think Gorsuch is such a bad pick.