Meet Neil Gorsuch, the Newest Supreme Court Justice
The Court’s new addition could ensure a conservative bent for decades to come
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By Quinna Halim
The Progressive Teen Staff Writer
ON APRIL 7, 2017, NEIL GORSUCH WAS CONFIRMED to the highest court in the land. He will be the first to serve alongside a justice he previously clerked under, Justice Kennedy. Gorsuch clinched the Senate confirmation vote by a narrow margin of 54–45, with three Democrats joining the Republican majority. Gorsuch was officially sworn in as the 113th Supreme Court Justice on April 10th.
President Trump openly boasted about the confirmation, a clear victory for the Republicans during a period marred by feuds and failures (notably the failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act). “I got it done in the first 100 days. You think that’s easy?”
With this victory, many Americans — liberals and conservatives alike — wait with bated breath to see what impact Gorsuch’s presence will bear on the court.
Gorsuch’s judicial philosophy largely aligns with that of his predecessor, the late Justice Scalia, returning the court to its former ideological balance. Similar to Scalia, Gorsuch considers himself an originalist and textualist. He believes that the judiciary should interpret the Constitution as originally written and intended. In the past, Gorsuch has decried liberal judicial activism, accusing liberals of being addicted to courtrooms rather than elections to push their agenda. In Gorsuch’s tribute to Scalia he noted, “Judges should instead strive (if humanly and so imperfectly) to apply the law as it is, focusing backward, not forward, and looking to text, structure, and history to decide what a reasonable reader at the time of the events in question would have understood the law to be — not to decide cases based on their own moral convictions or the policy consequences they believe might serve society best.” To accurately predict Gorsuch’s future actions on the Court, we must heed his advice and turn our focus backward.
Gorsuch has a record of being pro-religious freedom. In the Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius case, he concurred with the majority in that federal law prohibited the Department of Health and Human Services from requiring corporations to provide contraceptive coverage in employee healthcare plans. Gorsuch went even further, writing that not only corporations but individual owners should also be allowed to deny contraceptive coverage under religious freedom.
Justice Gorsuch may cast an important vote in the upcoming Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer case. The case concerns the Missouri Constitution, which bars public money from being spent on churches. The Lutheran church applied to participate in a state program that helps replace playground surfaces with recycled rubber; it was subsequently rejected because of the clause in the state constitution. The church argued that this was a form of religious discrimination, while Missouri countered that it did not violate the Establishment Cause as it did not favor or disfavor any particular religion. This case could set a precedent for school choice, affecting whether states could continue to prohibit religion-based schools from receiving public funding.
Gorsuch may weigh in on another pending controversial case surrounding religious freedom, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The case revolves around a baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple on the grounds of religious freedom. The lower courts and Court of Appeals have ruled in favor of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, and the case is currently awaiting acceptance onto the Supreme Court docket. Gorsuch could have a say in whether the case is heard. As a defender of religious freedom, Gorsuch would likely favor having the case heard before the Supreme Court; otherwise, the lower courts’ rulings would stand.
Gorsuch has shown staunchly conservative views on abortion and physician-assisted suicide, having penned a book entitled “The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia.” In the book, he writes, “All human beings are intrinsically valuable, and the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong.” He proposed a legal system in which terminally ill patients could stop taking treatments to extend their life — but intentional killing was out of the question. While Gorsuch has never ruled directly on Roe v. Wade, many conservatives are hopeful that his presence on the court could help overturn the landmark decision.
Despite his political beliefs, Gorsuch firmly believes in the independence of the judiciary. He has written against court deference to federal agencies, notably in De Niz Robles v. Lynch and Gutierrez-Brizuela v. Lynch, in which he ruled against government attempts to interpret the law to disfavor immigrants. Gorsuch is a strong opponent of the “Chevron deference,” which holds that courts must defer to interpretation of the law set by federal agencies whenever the law is ambiguous. In this vein he differs from Scalia, who was an ardent supporter of the Chevron deference. Gorsuch may prove to be an unlikely ally to liberals on matters of Trump’s immigration laws. When Trump denounced a “so-called judge” who had blocked his travel ban, Gorsuch was reportedly “disheartened”. Obama appointee Neal Katyal even wrote, “I have seen him up close and in action, both in court and on the Federal Appellate Rules Committee (where both of us serve); he brings a sense of fairness and decency to the job, and a temperament that suits the nation’s highest court.”
To progressives, Neil Gorsuch is far from the ideal justice. Many questions remain unanswered: Will Gorsuch legislate from the bench by drawing upon his own personal beliefs? Will Gorsuch oppose President Trump when he deems necessary? Only time will tell.
