There is Not One Single Principled Reason to Oppose Judge Gorsuch
‘So look, it’s time to move beyond this hollow rhetoric and get back to the serious business of governing. Confirming Judge Gorsuch would mark a significant step in that direction. He’s proven himself a worthy successor to the Supreme Court, he’s earned high acclaim along the way from various news publications, and lawyers, and judges, and clerks who represent all walks of life and all political ideologies.’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) made the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding Supreme Court Nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch:
“Many members came to the floor yesterday to debate the Gorsuch nomination, and we’ll have all of next week to continue that debate. I would encourage my colleagues to continue debating this important nomination. Two months ago today — before Neil Gorsuch had even been nominated — I spoke on the Senate floor about the rhetoric we could expect to hear from the other side after the president’s nominee was announced. I predicted then that we would see many on the Left ‘[try] to paint whomever is actually nominated in apocalyptic terms.’
“‘Doesn’t matter who this Republican president nominates,’ I said then.
“‘Doesn’t matter who any Republican president nominates, really,’ I continued.
“No matter the nominee, I said, ‘We can expect to hear a lot of End Times rhetoric from the Left... [and] [i]n fact, we already have.’ I was alluding then to the fact that, sight unseen, we had already begun hearing from those on the Far Left who vowed to oppose anyone the president nominated. The Democratic Leader even joined in, saying 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.
“Remember, that was before Judge Gorsuch was even selected — before we knew his credentials, before we’d heard from current and former colleagues, before we’d examined his judicial record, and well before his hearing before the Judiciary Committee. Our friends across the aisle made it clear then that their opposition to this nominee would have nothing to do with the nominee himself. In fact, I said we could expect to hear a number of convoluted excuses as to why they wouldn’t support the president’s yet-to-be-named nominee — excuses that would amount to little more than their dissatisfaction with the outcome of the election.
“Sure enough, that’s just what we’ve seen over the past few weeks. They are opposing this well-qualified nominee despite his impressive credentials, bipartisan support and excellent testimony before the committee. Judge Neil Gorsuch is such an outstanding candidate, so non-controversial, so well-esteemed by people across the political spectrum that Democrats have been forced to talk about pretty much anything — President Trump…think tanks…you name it — but the nominee himself.
“Yesterday’s comments by the Democratic Leader are a good example. He gave a lengthy speech about why he wouldn’t support Judge Gorsuch, but when you boil it down, his remarks actually had little to do with Gorsuch at all. Essentially, he concluded that because Judge Gorsuch had earned the praise of legal groups like the Federalist Society, Democrats should not support him. By the way, all current sitting justices have participated in events with this same organization. That includes justices who were nominated by Democratic presidents, including President Clinton and President Obama.
“So yes, Judge Gorsuch has received high praise from a number of conservatives — just as he’s earned the support of centrists and leftists too. As I’ve pointed out on several occasions, many longtime Democrats you might not expect have even complimented Judge Gorsuch — people like President Obama’s former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal; President Obama's legal mentor, Professor Laurence Tribe; President Carter's district court appointee, Judge John Kane; President Clinton's appointee to the Tenth Circuit and former Chief Judge of that court, Judge Robert Henry; and liberal Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman, and so many more.
“Judge Gorsuch has such a proven record of judicial independence and impartiality that people from the Left to the Right — and everywhere in between — have voiced their confidence in his fitness to serve on the High Court. It explains why the American Bar Association — which, according to the Democratic Leader and former Democratic Judiciary Chairman, is the ‘gold standard’ for evaluating judges — gave Gorsuch its highest rating possible, unanimously well-qualified.
“So let’s be clear, the support for Judge Gorsuch is anything but one-sided. The Democratic Leader also noted his concerns yesterday about the process by which we arrived at this point. But, Mr. President, as we all know, this Supreme Court nomination process has been historically transparent.
“Here’s what I mean: Months and months ago, then-presidential candidate Trump took the unprecedented action of compiling a list of potential nominees he would consider nominating to the Supreme Court. Those potential nominees were made public for the American people, including every Senator, to review.
“Before making his selection, now-President Trump's White House consulted on a bipartisan basis with each and every Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, as well as numerous other Senators. And the president followed through with his pledge, selecting from that public list Judge Neil Gorsuch of Colorado — who we can all agree is well qualified to serve on the Supreme Court and who the Senate confirmed to his current position without a single vote in opposition.
“Since being nominated, Judge Gorsuch has continued this transparent process by meeting face-to-face with nearly 80 Senators, from both parties. So you see, this process has been as straightforward and bipartisan as possible from the very beginning — before we even knew that the president would indeed be making this nomination.
“Only in the upside down world of my Democratic colleagues is telling the entire world months before one is even elected president the list of people you would choose from if you became president a ‘secretive’ process.
“So look, it’s time to move beyond this hollow rhetoric and get back to the serious business of governing. Confirming Judge Gorsuch would mark a significant step in that direction. He’s proven himself a worthy successor to the Supreme Court, he’s earned high acclaim along the way from various news publications, and lawyers, and judges, and clerks who represent all walks of life and all political ideologies.
“People like David Frederick — a longtime Democrat and board member of the left-leaning American Constitution Society — who may have summed it up best in a recent Washington Post op-ed. ‘The Senate should confirm [Gorsuch],’ Frederick wrote, ‘because there is no principled reason to vote no.’
“No principled reason to oppose him—none. As this American Constitution Society member says, there is not one single principled reason to oppose Judge Gorsuch, so it makes sense that Democrats can’t come up with a single substantive reason to oppose him either.”
Related Issues: Nominations, Supreme Court, Judicial Nominations
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