Posted on 01/31/2017 9:17:26 PM PST by Tours
Washington President Donald Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court on Tuesday night, fulfilling his campaign promise to nominate a documented judicial conservative to the nation's justiceship.
Gorsuch currently serves as a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. If confirmed by the Senate, he will take the seat of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, considered a lion of the law and a hero of the political Right.
Scalia died over a year ago, leaving a vacancy on the nine-judge court. But Republican Senate leadership refused to entertain then-president Barack Obama's choice for the seat, Merrick Garland, casting the vacancy as a choice the American people to make through the selection of their next president.
Garland, had he been confirmed, would have brought to four the number of Jewish justices on the court.
Trump campaigned on a promise to select his nominee for Scalia's seat from a published list of known conservatives. Gorsuch, 49, was on that list.
Gorsuch characterizes his judicial philosophy in similar terms as Scalia: He considers himself a textualist on statutes, and believes the US Constitution should be enforced as it was originally interpreted. He has weighed in in favor of "religious freedom" laws that have allowed for exceptions to and restrictions on reproductive rights, although he has not personally issued any rulings on abortion from the bench.
Born in Colorado, Gorsuch attended Columbia University, Harvard Law School, and Oxford University for his doctorate. He clerked for both Supreme Court Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy before a short stint in private practice.
Judgeships on the Supreme Court are lifetime appointments.
Shortly after Trump announced his nominee came criticism and concern from several Reform Jewish organizations.
“We are greatly troubled by Judge Gorsuch’s record, which suggests that he may not have the attributes and values a nominee to the Supreme Court ought to have in order to mete out justice and interpret the laws that affect us all,” a statement issued by Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner on behalf of a number of the Reform movement’s umbrella bodies read. “We look forward to engaging in the confirmation process to further evaluate Judge Gorsuch’s views on issues of core importance to the Reform Movement, including civil rights, separation of church and state, religious freedom, women’s rights, LGBTQ equality, and many more.”
Rabbi Pesner added that either way, “it is also absolutely crucial that whomever joins the highest court in the land is a person who will defend the Constitution, promote equal rights and opportunity for all and approach legal interpretation with the reverence and care it deserves.”
“Unless President Trump's nominee meets all of these criteria and clarifies his views in confirmation hearings, we have significant reservations about his confirmation to be a Supreme Court Justice,” he added. Bend the Arc, a liberal social action group, also said it was “deeply concerned” by Gorsuch’s record.
Among Gorsuch’s opinions, most attracting Jewish interest was Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby in 2013, when the appeals court upheld the right of a private business to reject the government mandate to provide contraceptive care under employee health plans.
The Obama administration had offered leeway on such coverage to faith-based non-profits, but would not extend them to private businesses. Gorsuch joined the majority in the Appeals Court ruling, which was upheld the next year by the Supreme Court. Liberal Jewish groups backed the government in the case, while Orthodox Jewish groups favored Hobby Lobby. Gorsuch has also favored displays of crosses on public lands, and has tended in his rulings toward the rights of gun owners, in favor of the death penalty and against abortion rights.
The Interfaith Alliance, which describes itself "the faith-based voice countering the radical right and promoting the positive role of religion”, also voiced opposition to the nomination, saying that Gorsuch supported religious discrimination as federal judge.
"Religious freedom is not a license to discriminate,” the statement read. “Unfortunately, President Trump's Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch seems to believe otherwise.”
The alliance added that "as a federal judge he ruled on two of the most consequential religious freedom cases in recent years, and both times he opposed genuine religious freedom. Instead, he empowered groups seeking to force their religious beliefs onto others.”
"Senators must carefully examine Judge Gorsuch's views and record to determine whether he would uphold religious freedom for all Americans, regardless of faith. We cannot afford as a nation to put our First Freedom at risk,” the group concluded.
Nathan Diament, the Orthodox Union’s executive director of public policy, meantime, said Gorsuch’s rulings “show a jurisprudential approach that venerates religious conscience and pluralism in American society.”
Trump’s supreme court nomination is likely to face a fight, with Democrats suggesting they may filibuster his nomination. Democrats are still stung by the refusal of Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to allow a hearing for President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace Scalia, Merrick Garland, a moderate judge. Garland, had he been confirmed, would have brought to four the number of Jewish justices on the court. On the other side of the Jewish movements spectrum, however, the Orthodox Union, said Gorsuch’s rulings “show a jurisprudential approach that venerates religious conscience and pluralism in American society.”
Danielle Ziri and JTA contributed to this report.
What a hoot, as if the Left in the U.S. wanted four Jewish SCOTUS Justices.
“What a hoot, as if the Left in the U.S. wanted four Jewish SCOTUS Justices.”
The left would have loved to have seen an increase in Jewish Justices from 3 to 4 as long as the 4th was ultra liberal.
Probably so. After posting I thought of Ginsberg.
It’s truly sad the state of some Jews in the U.S.
I guess I should talk, with some of our folks totally irreversibly brain dead these days.
The group “Bend the Arc” is funded by George Soros’ son Alexander Soros.
This kind of reminds me of the Union’s for Hillary: machine and leadership thinks one thing, membership at large is divided.
Another example; many, if not most of the Dems who voted against Obama and refugees in fall 2015 repped CDs with hi Jewish populations.
Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh!
Soros was born a JEW, yet he was a NAZI and turned in all of the Jews he could find, to be hauled off to be gassed. Good grief...and some have even claimed that Hitler was part Jewish.
Thanks for the info!
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Hitler’s mother was a Jew.
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Most of the world fits that description.
No, you have to go back father than that; she married her cousin ( don’t know what # ), but papa Hitler wasn’t Jewish and IIRC, they married in church.
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Soros is pure demon.
That he most assuredly is!
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Hitler did his Bar Mitzva.
Stop making things up; please.
Hitler was a straight kid, but got into trouble and went to prison, which is where he changed.
read Mein Kampf
An Ashkenazi? Well, there it is then.
Scalia was assassinatred last spring.
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