President Donald Trump nominated Colorado Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the seat on the Supreme Court vacated by Justice Antonin Scalia who died under mysterious circumstances in February 2016.
According to published reports, Gorsuch, 49, is a conservative purist who holds a “deep commitment to the original understanding of the constitution and the rule of law”.
Gorsuch embraces an “originalism” view of the constitution, meaning he believes judges should interpret the constitution as it was written — unlike former President Obama who interpreted the constitution to fit his socialist agenda.
Democrats are so fearful of a conservative judge on the Supreme Court that they promised to filibuster Trump’s nominee before the nomination was even announced.
In a speech accepting the nomination on Tuesday, Gorsuch said, “Standing here in a house of history and acutely aware of my own imperfections, I pledge that if I am confirmed I will do all my powers permit to be a faithful servant of the constitution and laws of this great country.”.
Liberals decried Trump’s nomination as a “payback to the Religious Right”.
A Daily Beast writer cried that “Judge Neil Gorsuch is enthusiastically pro-life and conservative on all other issues near and dear to evangelicals who held their noses and who elected a morally flawed president.”
They remind us that former President Obama picked Judge Merrick Garland to fill the same empty seat. But Republicans who control the Senate refused to give Garland a confirmation hearing.
Gorsuch is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School.
He once drove taxi cabs for a living.
