Neil Gorsuch Supreme Court nomination

On February 13, 2016, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Antonin Scalia died unexpectedly. His death triggered a protracted political battle that did not end until the Senate confirmed Gorsuch's nomination in April 2017. Political commentators at the time widely recognized Scalia as one of the most conservative members of the Court, and noted that then-President Barack Obama had an opportunity to name a more liberal replacement, a move that could alter the Court's ideological balance for many years to come. Obama ultimately nominated centrist United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Chief Judge Merrick Garland on March 16, 2016. His confirmation would have given Democratic appointees a majority on the Supreme Court for the first time since the 1970s. However, the Senate had had a Republican majority since 2015, so Garland could only be confirmed by a bipartisan majority. However, Republican Senate leaders declared that the Senate would not even consider a nomination from the president, citing the fact that the vacancy arose during Obama's final year as president. This was the first time in 150 years that the Senate had refused to hold a confirmation vote on a Senate nominee. Garland's nomination therefore expired on January 3, 2017 with the end of the 114th Congress, 293 days after it had been submitted to the Senate. Many Democrats reacted angrily to the Senate's refusal to consider Garland, with Senator Jeff Merkley describing the vacant seat as a "stolen seat". However, Republicans like Senator Chuck Grassley argued that the Senate was within its rights to refuse to consider a nominee until the inauguration of a new president. ==Nomination==

Potential candidates During the 2016 presidential campaign, while Garland remained before the Senate, Trump released two lists of potential nominees. On May 18, 2016, Trump released a short list of eleven judges for nomination to the Scalia vacancy. In September 2016, Trump released a second list of ten possible nominees, this time including three minorities. Both lists were assembled by the Federalist Society and The Heritage Foundation. Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society played a major role in the creation of the second list, which included Gorsuch. The Trump administration also considered nominating Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett to the seat, who were later nominated and confirmed after the retirement of Anthony Kennedy in 2018 and the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020, respectively. After winning the presidential election, Trump and White House Counsel Don McGahn interviewed four individuals for the Supreme Court opening, all of whom had appeared on one of the two previously released lists. Announcement President Trump announced the nomination of Gorsuch on January 31, 2017. The nomination was formally received by the Senate on February 1, 2017, and was subsequently referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Richard Primus of Politico described Gorsuch as "Scalia 2.0" due to ideological similarities, and a report prepared by Lee Epstein, Andrew Martin, and Kevin Quinn predicted that Gorsuch would be a "reliable conservative" similar to Scalia. According to The Washington Post, Trump considered rescinding Gorsuch's nomination, venting angrily to advisers after Gorsuch was critical of his escalating attacks on the federal judiciary in a private February meeting with Democratic legislators. ==Responses to the nomination==

Norm Eisen, Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform in the White House and Ambassador to the Czech Republic, endorsed Gorsuch. Neal Katyal, who served as Acting Solicitor General of the United States during the Obama Administration and law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, endorsed Gorsuch for approval to the Supreme Court and introduced him on the first day of the hearings. The National Rifle Association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the Second Amendment Foundation, and other gun rights groups endorsed Gorsuch, while Americans for Responsible Solutions, the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, and other gun control proponents opposed his nomination. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi claimed Gorsuch "comes down on the side of felons over gun safety". PolitiFact called her statement misleading and said that Gorsuch's past rulings do not "demonstrate that he thinks more felons should be allowed guns than what is already permitted under the law". The American Civil Liberties Union raised concerns about Gorsuch's respect for disability rights. The Secular Coalition for America, Freedom from Religion Foundation, and Union for Reform Judaism all voiced concerns with Gorsuch's nomination. The Judicial Crisis Network enthusiastically rallied behind Gorsuch after running a campaign against Merrick Garland, spending a total of $17 million to these ends. ==Judiciary Committee review==

Confirmation hearings Gorsuch's nomination was first considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which holds hearings on all federal judicial nominations and decides whether or not to send nominations to the full Senate for a final confirmation vote. In the 115th Congress, the committee consisted of 11 Republicans and 9 Democrats and was led by Republican Chuck Grassley. In preparation for the hearing, the committee requested that the Department of Justice (DOJ) send all documents they had regarding Gorsuch's work in the George W. Bush administration. By the time the hearings commenced, the DOJ had sent the committee over 144,000 pages of documents and, according to a White House spokesman, more than 220,000 pages of documents altogether. Gorsuch's confirmation hearing started on March 20, 2017, and lasted four days. On the first day of hearings, March 20, senators largely used their opening statements to criticize each other, with Ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein complaining of the "unprecedented treatment" of Judge Merrick Garland, Democrat Michael Bennet arguing that "two wrongs don't make a right", and Republican Ted Cruz insisting that President Trump's nomination now carried "super-legitimacy". Democratic senators repeatedly criticized Gorsuch for his dissent in Transam Trucking v. Administrative Review Bd., colloquially referred to as the "frozen trucker case", where the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled in favor of a truck driver who, after waiting hours for relief, had finally abandoned his unheated truck and trailer in dangerously inclement conditions. Democrat Dick Durbin told Gorsuch that the cold weather described in the facts of the case was "not as cold as your dissent". In his 16-minute opening statement, Gorsuch repeated his belief that a judge who likes all his rulings is "probably a pretty bad judge." He argued that his decisions were based on "the facts at issue in each particular case." He also noted that his extensive record included many examples where he ruled both for and against disadvantaged groups. Ted Cruz used his time to ask Gorsuch about ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'', basketball, and mutton busting. Franken went on to say "I had a career in identifying absurdity", referring to his former career as a comedian. Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse spent the bulk of his allotted time describing to Gorsuch the negative effects of "dark money" contributed by unknown donors. He also warned that the Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling's elimination of limits for political spending by corporations in elections could result in undue corporate political influence and asked Gorsuch if he would be subject to "capture" by big business, to which Gorsuch replied "nobody will capture me". Democrat Amy Klobuchar pressed Gorsuch on what she viewed as his "selective originalism," observing that Gorsuch, who self-identifies as an originalist, had not consistently interpreted legal texts, including the Constitution, by the original public meaning that they would have had at the time that they became law. John Finnis, who had supervised Gorsuch's dissertation at Oxford, stated, "the allegation is entirely without foundation. The book is meticulous in its citation of primary sources. The allegation that the book is guilty of plagiarism because it does not cite secondary sources which draw on those same primary sources is, frankly, absurd." Kuzma stated, "I have reviewed both passages and do not see an issue here, even though the language is similar. These passages are factual, not analytical in nature, framing both the technical legal and medical circumstances of the 'Baby/Infant Doe' case that occurred in 1982." Committee vote On April 3, 2017, the Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed the Gorsuch nomination, sending it to the full Senate for final action by an 11–9 ==Filibuster and cloture vote==

in Lower Manhattan, New York City urged Senate Democrats to filibuster the Neil Gorsuch nomination, April 1, 2017 Gorsuch needed to win a simple majority vote of the full Senate (51 votes) to be confirmed; however, a filibuster by the opposition would add an additional requirement, a three-fifths supermajority vote in favor of cloture (60 votes), which would allow debate to end and force a final vote on confirmation. At the time, Republicans held 52 seats in the 100-seat Senate, and could also count on (if needed) the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Pence, acting in his Constitutional capacity as President of the Senate. The nuclear option was used in 2013 by then-Majority Leader Harry Reid to abolish filibusters for all presidential appointments except nominations to the Supreme Court. During the last day of committee hearings, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that he would filibuster the nomination. Democratic opposition focused on complaints saying that Scalia's seat should have been filled by President Obama, rather than on Gorsuch himself. In addition, Democrats Al Franken, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris, along with Independent Bernie Sanders each criticized various aspects of Gorsuch's record. Additionally, Jeff Merkley said he would do "anything in his power"—including the power of filibustering—to oppose Gorsuch's nomination. On April 6, 2017, Democrats launched a filibuster against Gorsuch's nomination. Republicans could not reach a supermajority (60 votes) needed for cloture. In response, they invoked the nuclear option and changed the Senate rules to end filibusters for Supreme Court nominees. After the rules change, a second cloture vote was held; this one, needing only a simple majority of Senators voting, passed, bringing debate to a close. ==Full Senate vote==

and associate Justice Anthony Kennedy The Senate confirmed Neil Gorsuch to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court on April 7, 2017, by a vote of 54–45. Republican Johnny Isakson, who had supported the nomination, was absent for the vote because he was recovering from back surgery. On April 10, Gorsuch took the prescribed constitutional and judicial (set by federal law) oaths of office, and became the 113th member of the Supreme Court. At age 49, he was the youngest person to join the Court since Clarence Thomas, at age 43, in 1991. Also, having been a law clerk for Anthony Kennedy (1993–94), he became the first Supreme Court justice to serve alongside a justice for whom he had previously clerked. ==See also==