Neil Gorsuch Takes a Seat

On February 13, 2016, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died, leaving the ninth chair empty. Former president Barack Obama was in office at the time, and nominated Judge Merrick Garland. However, the Republican Congress voted against his confirmation, and ultimately the seat was left open for fourteen months.

Now, under the presidency of Donald Trump, Judge Neil M. Gorsuch has just been sworn into the position of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on Monday the 10 of April.

It happened amid turbulence in the Senate, and has left many Obama supporters feeling (justifiably) pissed off.

It begins with the Senate’s configuration. When Garland was proposed, the Senate had 54 republicans to 46 democrats. More importantly, perhaps, was the fact that for several years preceding Scalia’s death, conservative votes were the majority of the Supreme Court justices. Obama had appointed two liberal judges, but there was a 4-5 democrat to republican split in the court. Had his appointment of Garland been confirmed, it would have added a moderate to the mix that republicans could not count on. To emphasize, Garland was not even a liberal; he is a widely regarded (on both sides of the spectrum) judge, that normally would have received bipartisan support.

This brings us back to the conundrum of a republican majority Senate. Angry with Obama’s presidency, and the prospect of a less conservative court, senators refused to even allow Garland a hearing; this means that not only did they not confirm him, they basically cited the fact that Obama was in his final year of presidency as a reason to not legitimize his nomination. But this is historically unfounded. Presidents in their last year have nominated a justice (for instance in 1968, President Lyndon Johnson nominated Homer Thornberry).

Despite outrage at all of this, democrats took solace in the fact that Hillary Clinton would be the president in a year’s time, and they assumed they would get their liberal judge eventually.

Fast forward to January of this year, and everyone is rethinking the situation. Trump nominates Judge Neil Gorsuch. He is an originalist, meaning he believes in literal interpretation of the Constitution. He has said his philosophy as a judge is to “apply the law as it is, focusing backward, not forward…looking to text, structure, and history.” Needless to say, he’s not exactly a progressive judge. To make matters worse, he is 49 years old, and will most likely serve upwards of 30 years as judge.

Because of all of this, and in general anger at the treatment of the Garland nomination, democrats in the Senate filibustered Gorsuch’s nomination. However, due to the 52 to 48 republican Senate majority, they were easily able to change the laws about how judged are approved, and confirm Gorsuch, all in a week’s time.

And so, this Monday saw the swearing in of Gorsuch as a Supreme Court justice. But for liberals, the situation holds very little justice.