Judge Neil Gorsuch sparred with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., at Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on his Supreme Court nomination over his originalist approach to the law.
Feinstein, the Judiciary Committee’s ranking Democrat, said she worries that Gorsuch’s originalist approach amounted to a regressive view of the law. Originalism is a judicial philosophy that holds the Constitution should be interpreted as it was written.
“It would be a mistake to think that originalism turns on the secret intention of the drafters of the law,” Gorsuch told Feinstein. “When it comes to equal protection of the laws, for example, it matters not a wit that some of the drafters of the 14th amendment were racists — and they were.”
Feinstein said she thought originalism would bring Americans “backward, not forward.”
“If one looks at originalism in my context, which is real life, I want your daughters … not to [be forced] to a lesser fate because the law would be applied in a backward sense,” Feinstein told Gorsuch about his judicial philosophy.
Gorsuch challenged Feinstein’s view of the law as she pressed him to weigh in on the most important issues of the day. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals judge chose not to do so, but defended his originalist credentials later in answer to questions from South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.
“I’m happy to be called [an originalist],” Gorsuch said. “I do worry about the use of labels in our discussion … as if originalism belonged to a party. It doesn’t. As if it belonged to an ideological wing. It doesn’t.”
Wednesday marks Gorsuch’s third day before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he’s facing 20-minute question-and-answer sessions with senators from both sides of the aisle.
