President Donald Trump nominated 10th Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch for associate justice of the Supreme Court.
Trump's decision is one of the most consequential moves of his young administration and a decision with ramifications that could long outlast his time in office.
Gorsuch, 49, who served on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.
The two finalists for the high court slot - Gorsuch and Thomas Hardiman - were both summoned to Washington ahead of Tuesday's announcement, according to The Associated Press. The judges appeared on Trump's list of 21 possible choices that he made public during the campaign.
Gorsuch served for two years in George W. Bush's Department of Justice where he was known for clear, colloquial writing, advocacy for court review of government regulations, defense of religious freedom and skepticism toward law enforcement, the AP reported. Gorsuch has contended that courts give too much deference to government agencies' interpretations of statutes.
Gorsuch is also known for opposing assisted-suicide legislation.
Here’s what we know about Neil Gorsuch
- He is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School where he was a classmate of former President Barack Obama; he has a Ph.D from Oxford where he was awarded a Marshall Scholarship.
- Gorsuch is a judge on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
- He was nominated to the 10th Circuit Court by President George W. Bush in 2006; his nomination was approved on a voice vote.
- If confirmed, Gorsuch, 49, would be the youngest Supreme Court nominee in the last 25 years.
- Gorsuch has clerked for two Supreme Court justices – Justice Byron White and Justice Anthony Kennedy; he also clerked for Judge David Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington D.C. Circuit.
- Gorsuch supported a 10th Circuit ruling on a suit against the portion of the Affordable Care Act that requires employers to pay for contraception for employees. In Hobby Lobby Stores v Sebelius, the owners of Hobby Lobby craft stores objected to paying for contraception, saying it violated their religious beliefs. Gorsuch wrote that the requirement in the ACA did substantially burden Hobby Lobby owners in the exercise of their religious rights.
- Gorsuch is considered a textualist – one who follows the letter of the text, in this case, the Constitution.
- He is also considered a originalist – as Scalia was. Originalism holds that the Constitution's meaning is stable from the time it was ratified. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia defined "originalism" this way: "The Constitution that I interpret and apply is not living but dead, or as I prefer to call it, enduring. It means today not what current society, much less the court, thinks it ought to mean, but what it meant when it was adopted."
- He wrote a book about euthanasia, "The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia." In it, Gorsuch argued for "retaining the laws banning assisted suicide and euthanasia … based on the idea that all human beings are intrinsically valuable and the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong."
The judges appeared on Trump's list of 21 possible choices that he made public during the campaign, and each has met with him to discuss the vacancy that arose when Antonin Scalia died nearly a year ago.
The ninth seat on the Supreme Court has sat empty since Scalia died in February 2016. President Barack Obama nominated U.S. Circuit Court Judge Merrick Garland for the vacancy, but Senate Republicans refused to consider the pick, saying the seat should be filled only after the November election.
That GOP effort outraged the White House and congressional Democrats, who have suggested they might seek to block any choice Trump makes. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York has said Democrats will oppose any nominee outside the mainstream.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer said that while Democrats may not like the "political or philosophical background" of the president's pick, "the criteria in terms of academia background, time on the bench, the expertise and criteria meets the intent of both Republicans and Democrats."
If Democrats decide to filibuster, the fate of Trump's nominee could rest in the hands of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Trump has encouraged McConnell to change the rules of the Senate and make it impossible to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee — a change known in the Senate as the "nuclear option."
The Associated Press contributed to this report