In nominating federal appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, President Trump has made an excellent choice. Assuming there is nothing in Gorsuch’s record that is disqualifying, the Senate should confirm him posthaste.

The path to the Gorsuch nomination began almost a year ago when a seat opened on the Court as a result of Justice Antonin Scalia’s death. The conventional wisdom at the time was that President Obama would nominate a jurist whom the Senate then would confirm. But Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saw the matter differently. Yes, under the Constitution the president has the exclusive power to nominate justices. But the Senate also has a power that it alone may exercise—that of consenting (or not) to a president’s nomination. Without that consent no nominee may be appointed to the Court.