John Greenya - Gorsuch: The Judge Who Speaks for Himself

Thank you for downloading this Simon & Schuster ebook.

Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.

T O C HRIS

T O THE MEMORY OF J IM G REENYA , M IKE G REENYA, AND D ENISE D EL P RIORE G REENYA.

R.I.P.

I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO CLARIFY

N OBODY SPEAKS FOR ME.

N OBODY.

I DON T HAVE SPOKESMEN.

I M A JUDGE . I SPEAK FOR MYSELF.

Judge Neil Gorsuch , before the Senate Judiciary Committee , March 21 , 2017

A t exactly two minutes past 8:00 p.m. on January 31, 2017, in the East Room of the White House, Donald J. Trump presented the nation with Neil McGill Gorsuch of Colorado, the person he had selected to fill the United States Supreme Court seat left vacant by the sudden death of Antonin Scalia on February 13, 2016.

One of the most unusual aspects of the ceremony was that the name of the nominee had not leaked and spoiled the surprise. In the early days of the young administration, most of Trumps choices, especially those of his cabinet members, had been leaked. Not this one. The important secret had been kept, and then revealed with all the deft theatricality of a finale on The Apprentice .

On Monday the thirtieth, Trump had phoned Gorsuch and told him he was his nominee. Trumps eventual list of twenty-one had gone down to six, four, and then two before Neil Gorsuch became the presidents pick.

The physical route by which the forty-nine-year-old jurist and his wife, Louise, had made it to Washington for the Big Reveal had been cleverly concealed from the media. After he got the call from Trump on Monday telling him he was the nominee, the judge and his wife went to the house of a friend who also lived in Boulder. There they were met by several lawyers from the office of the White House Counsel who briefed Gorsuch on how the next nights ceremony would go down.

After the briefing, Judge and Mrs. Gorsuch were drivenby a circuitous, back-roads routeto the Denver airport where they boarded a military jet for the flight to Joint Base Andrews, just outside Washington. In D.C. they spent Monday night at the home of friends, where they were picked up the next day and driven to the White House.

Later that same day, Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters, You saw a very well planned out and well-executed strategy tonight. This was a great effort by the entire team.

The reactions to the presidents nominee from both sides of the political aisle were immediate and predictable. Senator Charles Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Gorsuch was an extraordinary judge, but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called him an ideologue. Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, and Nan Aron, president of the progressive Alliance for Justice, used the same worddisastrousto describe the Gorsuch nomination.

Given the relatively recent history of battles over nominees to the Supreme Court, such disparity of views should come as no surprise. This time, however, the Democrats were, understandably, still furious over the fact that the Republicans, in a move that had Democrats screaming Foul, had blocked the confirmation of Judge Merrick Garland, then-president Obamas choice to fill the Scalia seat. Never before in American judicial history had this happened, and the wound was still raw.

A CCORDING TO S ENATOR S CHUMER (D-NY), Judge Gorsuch owe[d] it to the American people to provide an inkling of what kind of justice he would be. The minority leader may have wished that Neil Gorsuch felt he owed that duty to the American people, but if he had, it would have gone against decades and decades of actual practice.

In 1993twenty-two years before the confirmation hearings of Chief Justice John (I call balls and strikes) Roberts, no less a liberal icon than Ruth Bader Ginsburg told an interviewer, in an oft-quoted statement in the pregoing viral era, that she would give no hints, no forecasts, no previews. One commentator wrote that Gorsuch proved an especially ardent follower of what has come to be known as the Ginsburg rule.

In the six-week period between the nomination and the beginning of the confirmation hearings on March 20, Gorsuch began the charm offensive, visits to senators offices so they could take his measure to help them decide how to vote on his nomination. Even though they knew better (or should have), many senators used the occasion of these visits to ask Gorsuch how he would rule on specific cases or issues.

Neil Gorsuch is a tall, pleasant-looking man with strong features, a full head of prematurely gray hair, and a trim physique. While answering questions or reading his statement, he sat up straight, as if posing early for Mount Rushmore. The morning after the hearings opened, a Washington Post story headlined Supreme Court Nominee Neil Gorsuchs First Day of Hearings featured glowing assessments from Republicans and vows of further scrutiny from Democrats.

Gorsuch, it said, steered clear of controversy, and tried to reassure senators he was a mainstream jurist who was in the majority in 99 percent of the 10 years of cases he decided on the appeals court. Gorsuch said he has ruled for disabled students, prisoners, undocumented immigrants, the rich and poor, and against such persons, too. But my decisions have never reflected a judgment about the people before meonly my best judgment about the law and facts at issue in each particular case.

At forty-nine, Neil Gorsuch has a commanding presence. While delivering his thirteen-minute statement in a firm voice and with a resolute manner, he even looked western. The conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer agreed: In a panel discussion on Fox News Special Report , several days before the hearings began, Krauthammer said, of Gorsuch, This guys out of central casting. This is a Gary Cooper character. Attacking him is a losing proposition.

Gorsuch may not, like the late movie star, say Yup, but he is given to expressions that make him sound older than his forty-nine years. On the day after Gorsuch gave his opening statement, Dana Milbank, the Washington Post s sometimes snarky but never dull political columnist, wrote: The nomination of Neil Gorsuch presents the Senate with a constitutional dilemma: Is this nation prepared to have Eddie Haskell serving a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court? Eddie Haskell is the Golly, gee-whiz, Mrs. Cleaver character from the television show Leave It to Beaver .

That Neil Gorsuch speaks like an older person and uses terms that make him sound retro compared to his contemporaries is not surprising to those who have known him for a long time. Dr. Steven Ochs, who has taught advanced placement history at Georgetown Prep for four decades and was faculty advisor to the student council the year Gorsuch was senior class president, recalls, There is a way in which Neil always was older, or seemed older, than his age, even back then. He was more involved in and knowledgeable about the political issues of the day than the others in his class.

Another surprising distinction is that, in contrast to her son, Neils mother, the late Anne Gorsuch Burford (she divorced Neils father, David Gorsuch, in 1982 and married Robert Burford the following year), was known for her colorful use of language, making her what reporters call good copy.