Judge Neil Gorsuch a and his wife, Marie Louise, look on, after President Donald Trump nominated him for the Supreme Court, at the White House in Washington, DC, on January 31, 2017. (Getty)
President Donald Trump has nominated U.S. Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. The announcement came during an event Tuesday night in the East Room of the White House in front of a large crowd of supporters and journalists.
“I have a selected an individual whose qualities closely define what we are looking for,” Trump said after making his announcement. “Judge Gorsuch has outstanding legal skills, a brilliant mind, tremendous discipline and has earned bipartisan support.”
Trump said he studied Gorsuch’s writings and said he is “said to be among the finest and most brilliant, oftentimes the writings of any judge for a long, long time. His educational credentials … are as good as I’ve ever seen.”
Gorsuch said, “I am honored and humbled to receive this nomination. I look forward to meeting with Senators over the coming weeks as we begin this process.”
The appointment of new Justice to the Supreme Court of the United States was a key focus of Trump’s campaign, especially while going head to head with Hillary Clinton, often telling voters they would want him to be making that selection, not a Democrat. Trump said second to the defense of the nation, the appointment of a Supreme Court justice is the most important decision a president can make.
“We are also going to appoint justices to the United States Supreme Court who will uphold our laws and our Constitution,” Trump said in July.
Gorsuch will fill the seat vacated by Justice Antonin Scalia, who died unexpectedly in February 2016 at the age of 79.
Gorsuch, 49, sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Colorado.
Judge Neil Gorsuch. (10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals)
Of the nominees considered by Trump, his views most match Scalia, experts say. He is a staunch conservative and has an originalist interpretation of the Constitution.
Trump has said several times that he wanted to pick a replacement for Scalia “in the mold of” the late Justice.
“I will appoint justices, who like Justice Scalia, will protect our liberty with the highest regard for the Constitution,” Trump said in September 2016.
In May 2016, he said, “Justice Scalia was a remarkable person and a brilliant Supreme Court Justice. His career was defined by his reverence for the Constitution and his legacy of protecting Americans’ most cherished freedoms.”
In February 2016, Trump said, “Justice Scalia was a fantastic man. You really want that person to be as close to him as possible.”
You can read more about Gorsuch’s political views here.
Gorsuch lives in Boulder, Colorado, with his wife, Louise Gorsuch, and their two daughters, Emma, 17, and Belinda, 15.
He is a Colorado native.
His mother, Anne Gorsuch Burford, was the first administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, nominated to that position by President Ronald Reagan in 1981. She resigned in 1983 after trying to dismantle EPA regulations.
Gorsuch was nominated to the Appeals Court by President George W. Bush in 2006. Previously, he was an attorney and partner at the Washington, D.C. firm Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel, from 1995 to 2005. He spent a year as Principal Deputy to the Associate Attorney General, Robert McCallum, in the Department of Justice, before his nominate to the Appeals Court bench.
(Getty)
He graduated from Columbia University in 1988 and Harvard Law School in 1991.
Gorsuch was a clerk for current Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy from 1993 to 1994.
You can watch video of Trump’s announcement below:
Trump selected Gorsuch from a short-list that also included U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hardiman, who serves on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Pennsylvania alongside Trump’s sister. He was said to be the other finalist for the nomination.
Other possible picks included Judge William Pryor, who serves on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Alabama and Judge Diane Sykes, an Appeals Court judge from Wisconsin.
In May, not long after becoming the presumptive Republican nominee, Trump released a lengthy list of possible Supreme Court nominees. He added more names to that list in September, and said he would make his pick from that list, trying to make the “most transparent” selection of a Supreme Court Justice in history.
Trump followed through on that promise with his pick of Gorsuch, who was on the list.
“Millions of voters said this was the single most important issue to them when they voted for me for president,” Trump said. “I am a man of my word. I will do as I say. Something the American people have been asking for from Washington for a very, very long time.”
He said at the time he made the list with the help of highly respected conservatives and the leadership of the Republican Party. He said the picks were made because of the nominees “constitutional principles.”
Trump said in a statement, “Justice Scalia was a remarkable person and a brilliant Supreme Court Justice. His career was defined by his reverence for the Constitution and his legacy of protecting Americans’ most cherished freedoms. He was a Justice who did not believe in legislating from the bench and he is a person whom I held in the highest regard and will always greatly respect his intelligence and conviction to uphold the Constitution of our country.”
Scalia died while President Barack Obama was still in office, and he nominated Judge Merrick Garland to fill the vacancy.
But the Republican-controlled Congress would not give Garland a hearing, stating that it would be unfair to the next president to allow for Obama to put a new justice on the bench in his final year in office. The gamble by the GOP paid off when Trump won the presidency in November.
Gorsuch will now enter into the nomination process. Democrats have signaled they will fight Trump’s nominee through a filibuster, but now that he has been named, it will become more clear how much of a battle they will put up.
Republicans control the Senate by a 52-48 margin. If Democrats decided to filibuster Gorsuch, 60 votes would be required to break it.
Trump said during his announcement that Gorsuch has bipartisan support, and received that type of support during his unanimous confirmation by the Senate to the Appeals Court. He said he hopes Democrats and Republicans can come together “for once” for the good of the nation and confirm his nomination of Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.
The Democratic National Committee issued a statement just after Trump’s announcement in opposition of Gorsuch:
https://twitter.com/aabramson/status/826597781305454593/photo/1
Read more about Gorsuch at the link below: