Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Thursday accused Democrats of “hollow rhetoric” aimed at painting Judge Neil Gorsuch as a far-right Supreme Court nominee, and argued that Gorsuch is enjoying broad support from a range of people in politics and the media.
“Look, it’s time to move beyond this hollow rhetoric and get back to the serious business of governing,” McConnell said on the Senate floor Thursday.
Quoting a member of the left-leaning American Constitution Society, McConnell said there is “not one single principled reason to oppose Judge Gorsuch.”
McConnell accused his Democratic counterpart, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., of refusing to confirm anyone President Trump appointed to the high court even before Gorsuch’s nomination.
Before Gorsuch was nominated, McConnell pointed out that Schumer said “he would oppose anyone from the president’s list of candidates and would ‘fight it tooth-and-nail, as long as we have to’ in order to keep Justice Scalia’s seat open, even for the entirety of the president’s term.”
McConnell said that Gorsuch is so “non-controversial,” Democrats have been forced to talk about other reasons to oppose him, including Trump’s executive overreach. They have also noted that Gorsuch is supported by think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society.
McConnell pointed out that Schumer’s arguments that the Federalist Society is an organization on the far-right fringes is belied by all current Supreme Court justices’ participation in their events at one time or another.
“By the way, all current sitting justices have participated in events with this same organization,” McConnell said. “That includes justices who were nominated by Democratic presidents, including President Clinton and President Obama.”
Gorsuch has received “high praise” from centrists and leftists as well, he said, including President Obama’s former Solicitor General Neil Katyal; Obama’s legal mentor Professor Laurence Tribe; President Carter’s district court appointee Judge John Kane; President Clinton’s appoint to the Tenth Circuit and former chief judge of that court Judge Robert Henry; and liberal Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman.
