Last night, President Trump nominated constitutional conservative Neil Gorsuch, a current judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, and said during the announcement Tuesday evening, “I am a man of my word. I will do as I say. Something that the American people have been asking for from Washington for a very very long time.”
Trump indeed kept his promise to fill the late Justice Scalia’s seat on the Supreme Court bench with an exceptionally qualified individual who has a record of faithfulness to the Constitution as written and understood at its founding.
Judge Gorsuch was among the list of 21 potential nominees President Trump published during the campaign, which was vetted and approved by conservative institutions including Centennial Institute in Colorado, making this Supreme Court nomination the most transparent in American history. No other president has published such a list up front and promised to make his Supreme Court pick from that list.
Gorsuch has a proven record of constitutional conservatism, maintaining that it is the responsibility and duty of government to preserve and protect individual fundamental rights against government infringement. He said in a speech accepting President Trump’s nomination that he believes judges should base their decisions on the law and the original intent of the Constitution, not the judge’s own policy preferences or personal feelings.
Notably, Gorsuch joined the recent opinions upholding religious liberty in the Hobby Lobby and Little Sisters of the Poor cases, and if confirmed will continue to preserve and protect religious freedom for all Americans. In a highly contentious culture where feelings often override facts, Grouch’s firm reliance to consider the Constitution objectively over feelings should be supported and lauded by conservative millennials.
Gorsuch may also prove to be an influential member of the Supreme Court bench among his soon-to-be colleagues. He previously clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has consistently been the “swing vote” in cases of religious freedom and social issues. Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in the 2015 Obergefell decision, upholding same-sex marriage. For Gorsuch to have preexisting professional friendship with Justice Kennedy, he may be able to swing the Reagan appointee back to conservative values for a new generation.
Because he is only 49 (a veritable youth compared with the current median age of the bench), the Gorsuch nomination will impact the millennial generation the most strongly and most likely for the longest length of time than any of the other current members.
Also notably, Gorsuch published a book in 2006 on assisted suicide and euthanasia, providing a comprehensive judicial analysis and constitutional argument to preserve and protect life. An impeccably educated philosopher on jurisprudence, Gorsuch argues that life is inherently valuable and that intentional killing is always immoral.
A Denver, Colo. resident, Gorsuch has the full stamp of approval from influential constitutional attorneys in Colorado, including former Colorado Solicitor General Dan Domenico and former Alliance Defending Freedom counsel and Centennial Institute Fellow Michael Norton, who wrote, “Judge Gorsuch is likely to espouse similar principles to those espoused by Justice Scalia. He is likely to stand firm on similar doctrinal commitments, to reach similar outcomes, and be an articulate defender of conservative judicial theory. During his inauguration speech, President Trump pledged to return power to the citizens of America. I believe that is just what Judge Gorsuch will do if he is nominated and then confirmed to the Supreme Court. He values the rights of individuals over the mandates of big government. He is, therefore, a natural choice to replace Justice Scalia on the Supreme Court.”
Millennials who understand that the Constitution was ratified to fulfill the mandate of the Declaration of Independence to preserve and protect their intrinsically valuable and unalienable rights should be ecstatic and fully supportive of Judge Grouch’s nomination and tell their Senators to confirm him. He is exactly the kind of Supreme Court Justice that President Trump promised.
