The Senate Judiciary committee will convene its first day of hearings to confirm Neil Gorsuch to the United States Supreme Court on Monday. Since President Donald Trump nominated Gorsuch to the seat in late January, the federal judge has pretty much sailed through the pre-hearing process, which consists of meeting with senators and being vetted by the media and liberal interest groups. He’s raised no red flags, earned positive coverage, and prompted the tamest (and lamest) of opposition research dumps.
Last week, I asked Kelly Ayotte, the former New Hampshire senator who has been working closely with Gorsuch to prepare for his confirmation, if we should expect a boring hearing this week. “I hope so!” she said. Republicans are almost entirely united in announcing their pre-hearing support for Gorsuch. Meanwhile, there seems to be little appetite among Senate Democrats for filibustering and denying him an up-or-down vote. In the crudest sense, Gorsuch’s ascension to the Court will be an ideological wash—a conservative originalist replacing Antonin Scalia, the original conservative originalist.
