High-Stakes Senate Hearings on Gorsuch Set to Start This Week

But it is not clear that enough Democrats would join the filibuster for it to succeed, and Republicans could change Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees and confirm him with a simple-majority vote.

Democrats also remain bitter that Republicans blocked former President Barack Obama’s nominee for the same high court seat, Judge Merrick Garland, for almost a year. The current 4-4 ideological divide has kept the court off its internal workplace rhythms – operating in something of a judicial vacuum, reluctant to tackle hot-button issues that would lead to precedent-setting impact.

Senate President Mitch McConnell said the Senate would likely vote on Gorsuch’s nomination the week before its April 8 recess.

Gorsuch served as a clerk from 1993-94 and was originally hired by fellow Coloradan, Justice Byron White.

Not that Gorsuch has ruled on all these issues. As principal deputy associate attorney general from 2005 to 2006, he played a significant role in some of the controversies involving so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques”, including waterboarding.

While C is true for most of us, the universally correct answer is D. You’d be forgiven for not knowing this, though, as Gorsuch has fallen out of the spotlight since the news of his nomination.

Gorsuch and a majority of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the corporation had a religious right not to provide birth control coverage.

It was Kennedy who flew out to Colorado to perform his swearing in. “They got the nominee they wanted and now they’re investing huge bucks into trying to get him confirmed”.

Democratic senators readily acknowledge the pressure they are feeling from liberal grassroots activists and groups like Lambda Legal.

Democrat Bennet has not said whether he will support Gorsuch, who was nominated by President Donald Trump on January 31. “He and (adviser Stephen) Bannon create so many distractions that what traditionally would have been a great fight – a Supreme Court nomination one year after Republicans would not allow a vote on a Democratic nomination – seems like an afterthought”.

Last spring, after Scalia’s unexpected death, Gorsuch devoted a speech to him praising him for his fidelity and calling him a “lion of the law”. The big agency rulemakings on technical questions that sit much closer to the core of Chevron doctrine tend to come up through the D.C. Circuit, and would accordingly jump to mind for justices who got their start there or whose government background involved these kinds of administrative-law issues.

Second, I worry that Gorsuch’s “originalist” ideology will put at risk workers’ rights and safety and be damaging to the environment. “But that judges should do none of these things in a democratic society”.

The Chevron doctrine holds that when a law is ambiguous, courts must defer to an expert agency’s interpretation so long as it’s reasonable.

That fidelity to so-called “textualism” is laced through Gorsuch’s opinions.

Brettschneider’s piece extrapolates from Gorsuch’s writing on physician-assisted suicide to determine how Gorsuch would likely lean in the case of marriage equality. “Based on his extensive record, there can be no doubt that, had he been on the Court, Judge Gorsuch would have rejected each of these basic rights”.

“In Employment Division v. Smith, Justice Scalia wrote that the First Amendment has never given individuals a right to opt out of laws that, in their view, burden their exercise of religion”.

“There’s a little bit of me that’s hoping we’ll have the last laugh against Trump and the people who presented Gorsuch as though he’s in their pocket and going to rubber stamp the political and social agendas they want to promote”, said Laura Lichter, a Denver lawyer whose immigrant client won an appeal before Judge Gorsuch in 2015. “But it could also mean forcing manufacturers to abide not one but 51 sets of requirements, a prospect that could deter or delay access to innovative devices and wind up hurting more patients than it helps”.

The new ads are focused squarely on making it harder for Sens.

The clause states that “private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation”.

Thomas was livid about the decision. Among them, a vigorous dissenting opinion Gorsuch gave concerning a series of 12-foot crosses along the roadside on public land.

The National Center for Lesbian Rights said Gorsuch has a “dangerously radical view of religious liberty that would undermine anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people and others”.