Judge Neil Gorsuch, one of President Trump’s leading candidates to succeed the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, has an advantage over his top rival: he has the approval of a key Republican senator.
“Gorsuch, I think, is a good guy, from the research that I’ve been able to do on him,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told the Washington Examiner.
That’s more than she’s willing to say about Judge William Pryor, who is reportedly Gorsuch’s top rival to receive the nomination. When Pryor was confirmed to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2005, after a contentious Democratic filibuster, Murkowski did not cast a vote. She told reporters that her staff is looking into the history of the nomination to try to recall why she missed it. Gorsuch, by contrast, was confirmed to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2006 by a voice vote.
Gorsuch also fits the criteria that Murkowski gave Vice President Mike Pence when he asked what she’s looking for in a nominee.
“I did not offer any names,” she told the Washington Examiner. “What I did is remind him that right now we have a Supreme court that looks pretty — not generic, but in terms of where everybody has been educated back at Harvard, Yale, they’re from New York,” she said. “They’re all east coast. And I said, ‘The west is different. The west is different. I want somebody from the west.’ and he says ‘OK, I can appreciate that, I understand that.'”
Gorsuch went to Harvard law, but is a judge in the Tenth Circuit, which has jurisdiction in Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming.
With Democrats expected to put up a fight, Murkowski’s preferences could prove critical if Republicans — who hold a slim majority in the Senate — can’t spare a defection.
