United States President Donald J. Trump nominated Judge Neil M. Gorsuch to fill an 11
-month-old vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday night. Like the late Supreme
Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Judge Gorsuch is known as a textualist and originalist,
someone who will interpret the U.S. Constitution as the Founding Fathers intended.
During his speech introducing Judge Gorsuch, President Trump said:
When Justice Scalia passed away suddenly last February, I made a promise to the
American people: If I were elected president, I would find the very best judge in the
country for the Supreme Court. I promised to select someone who respects our laws
and is representative of our Constitution and who loves our Constitution and someone
who will interpret them as written.
Shortly after Justice Scalia’s death last February, Judge Gorsuch praised Scalia’s
legacy in a speech highlighting Scalia’s understanding of the distinction between
judge and legislator:
But tonight I want to touch on a more thematic point and suggest that perhaps the great
project of Justice Scalia’s career was to remind us of the differences between judges
and legislators. To remind us that legislators may appeal to their own moral convictions
and to claims about social utility to reshape the law as they think it should be in the future.
But that judges should do none of these things in a democratic society. That judges should
instead strive (if humanly and so imperfectly) to apply the law as it is, focusing backward,
not forward, and looking to text, structure and history to decide what a reasonable reader
at the time of the events in question would have understood the law to be—not to decide
cases based on their own moral convictions or the policy consequences they believe might
serve society best....
To President Trump’s credit, Judge Gorsuch is probably the best person he could
have picked to fill the vacant seat on the Supreme Court.
https://www.thetrumpet.com/article/14536.2.0.0/world/war/will-justice-neil-gorsuch-make-a-difference
-month-old vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday night. Like the late Supreme
Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Judge Gorsuch is known as a textualist and originalist,
someone who will interpret the U.S. Constitution as the Founding Fathers intended.
During his speech introducing Judge Gorsuch, President Trump said:
When Justice Scalia passed away suddenly last February, I made a promise to the
American people: If I were elected president, I would find the very best judge in the
country for the Supreme Court. I promised to select someone who respects our laws
and is representative of our Constitution and who loves our Constitution and someone
who will interpret them as written.
Shortly after Justice Scalia’s death last February, Judge Gorsuch praised Scalia’s
legacy in a speech highlighting Scalia’s understanding of the distinction between
judge and legislator:
But tonight I want to touch on a more thematic point and suggest that perhaps the great
project of Justice Scalia’s career was to remind us of the differences between judges
and legislators. To remind us that legislators may appeal to their own moral convictions
and to claims about social utility to reshape the law as they think it should be in the future.
But that judges should do none of these things in a democratic society. That judges should
instead strive (if humanly and so imperfectly) to apply the law as it is, focusing backward,
not forward, and looking to text, structure and history to decide what a reasonable reader
at the time of the events in question would have understood the law to be—not to decide
cases based on their own moral convictions or the policy consequences they believe might
serve society best....
To President Trump’s credit, Judge Gorsuch is probably the best person he could
have picked to fill the vacant seat on the Supreme Court.
https://www.thetrumpet.com/article/14536.2.0.0/world/war/will-justice-neil-gorsuch-make-a-difference
