Apparently most of FR didn't get this memo, since Trump picked Kennedy clerk Neil Gorsuch last time, and 85% of FReepers had orgasms over the appointment and refused to consider ANY evidence whatsoever that he wasn't the reincarnation of Antonin Scalia (and many STILL won't, even AFTER Gorsuch went rogue and started voting with the four commie RAT judges in 5-4 decisions)
According to many of my fellow FReepers, you can be a Anthony Kennedy alumni and as liberal as you want in your personal life, as long as you claim your "judicial philosophy" is "originalist"
It will MAGICALLY guarantee you ALWAYS vote the right way in the future! This "originalist" stuff for judges is like spinach for Popeye!
I’m aware of only that one decision where Gorsuch voted with the liberals. What other?
Thank god. Scalia had many admirable qualities. No one wrote better than him when law and facts were on his side and he ranks at the top of jurists in authorship of important SC opinions.
But Scalia was a statist and he despised the common law, which was the great gift that Britain gave to the world and after our Lord and Savior the greatest human institution on earth. It was the original law of our founders and our states from the time they were colonies, but it has been chipped away at to the point that little remains, and we are brought to our knees by statutory and regulatory law reminiscent of the Napoleonic code that governs France and Louisiana [softened by US constitutional requirements].
Did you actually read his opinion or are you just disappointed that the outcome does not suit your personal bias. I read his opinion, which follows the argument Scalia made writing for the majority in a 2008 case, namely that the law is too vague to be enforceable.
The conservatives thought it didn't matter that the law was vague - in other words joining the side of the law means what I want it to mean when I agree with the outcome and not when I don't.
There is a really simple fix to vague laws - Congress should do a better job of drafting them - most law is very well drafted when the legislature takes the time to do it properly. They can fix this law and then everyone will agree that it should be enforced as written.
And your choice of verb tense indicates you believe that Gorsuch voting with "RATs" is an ongoing and continuous pattern. Is there any evidence for this assertion (site case, date, and vote breakdown)?
Gorsuch has been a stellar Justice. Like many who are too lazy to read his actual opinion in Dimaya, you are looking only at the result, rather than his reasoning.
His opinion in that case is grounded in the Constitution, the text of the Statute, and on not permitting the government to use vague definitions in statutes. That’s a principle that anyone who is wary of the government should support, despite the result in this one particular instance.
Even the libtards realize what Gorsuch was doing in his Separate opinion.
https://thinkprogress.org/neil-gorsuch-voted-with-the-liberal-justices-ca1cc1e2fae0/