XPost: misc.legal, alt.politics.democrats.senate, sac.politics   
   XPost: alt.politics.trump   
   From: edellway@ottawa.ca   
      
   WASHINGTON - Neil McGill Gorsuch of Colorado won Senate   
   confirmation Friday as the 113th justice of the Supreme Court,   
   completing a 419-day odyssey that stretched from the death of   
   Justice Antonin Scalia and the denial of President Obama's   
   nominee to a Senate rules change known as the "nuclear option."   
      
   Senators voted 54-45 to confirm Gorsuch. Republicans and three   
   Democrats voted to approve him. The Democrats were Joe Donnelly   
   of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of   
   West Virginia. All three are all moderates who represent states   
   that President Trump won in last year's election. Republican   
   Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia, who is recovering from back   
   surgery, was absent for the vote.   
      
   Justices are appointed for life, and Gorsuch, who is only 49,   
   could serve for decades on the high court.   
      
   "He's going to make a fantastic addition to the court," Majority   
   Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Friday on the Senate floor.   
   "He's going to make the American people proud."   
      
   Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he hopes Gorsuch   
   will prove to be a justice who stands up for average Americans   
   rather than corporate interests.   
      
   "I hope Judge Gorsuch has listened to our debate here in the   
   Senate, particularly about our concern about the Supreme Court   
   increasingly drifting towards becoming a more pro-corporate   
   court that favors employers, corporations and special interests   
   over working Americans," Schumer said Friday. "We need a justice   
   on the court who will help swing it back in the direction of the   
   people. So we are charging Judge Gorsuch to be the independent   
   and fair-minded justice that America badly needs."   
      
   Gorsuch, a conservative judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for   
   the 10th Circuit, was confirmed the day after Republicans   
   invoked the nuclear option — changing Senate rules to end a   
   Democratic filibuster and advance Gorsuch's nomination with a   
   simple majority of 51 votes rather than the 60 votes needed   
   before the rule change.   
      
   "I wish that important aspects of this process had played out   
   differently," McConnell said. "It didn’t have to be this way.   
   But today is a new day. I hope my Democratic friends will take   
   this moment to reflect and, perhaps, consider a turning point in   
   their outlook going forward."   
      
   Schumer said the Republicans' action will make both the Senate   
   and the Supreme Court more partisan places.   
      
   "As a result, America's faith in the integrity of the court and   
   their trust in the basic impartiality of the law will suffer,"   
   he said. "Those are serious things for this Republic."   
      
   Friday's vote won't put Gorsuch on the high court immediately.   
   He will be sworn in at the court and the White House on Monday.   
   He then would attend his first private conference with the other   
   eight justices on Thursday and sit for the next round of oral   
   arguments that begins April 17, including an important case on   
   the separation of church and state.   
      
   But beyond the immediate logistics, the conclusion of the 14-   
   month-long process will have a major impact on all three   
   branches of government. It will bring the court back to full   
   strength following a period in which it deadlocked on four   
   cases, delayed others and avoided sweeping rulings. It will   
   leave the Senate deeply riven, both politically and   
   procedurally, after bitter battles over not one but two   
   nominees. And it will give President Trump his first major   
   achievement amid continuing imbroglios over health care,   
   immigration and the White House's ties to Russia.   
      
   Republicans and their conservative allies were in celebration   
   mode as the clock ticked down to the final vote Friday. To them,   
   Gorsuch epitomizes the type of judge who decides cases based on   
   the Constitution, the law and past precedents, rather than   
   personal opinion or ideology.   
      
   “He is a jurist of the highest character and integrity," said   
   Leonard Leo, who took a leave of absence from the conservative   
   Federalist Society to help with the confirmation process. "He   
   believes deeply in neutral, impartial decision-making, and he is   
   deeply committed to a Constitution whose limits on judicial and   
   government power inextricably intertwine with the preservation   
   of human freedom.”   
      
   Democrats and their liberal allies were desultory after losing   
   not only the confirmation battle but the minority party's right   
   to block high court nominations with just 41 votes. They fear   
   Gorsuch will align himself with the court's other conservatives   
   on issues ranging from employment discrimination to reproductive   
   rights.   
      
   “I think this guy’s going to do really bad things on the court,”   
   said Nan Aron, president of the liberal Alliance for Justice.   
   "The country will be worse off."   
      
   Erudite but evasive during more than 20 hours of testimony   
   before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, Gorsuch   
   largely skated through a Senate process that tripped up Merrick   
   Garland, Obama's nominee, from the get-go. Senate Republicans'   
   refusal to consider Garland — chief judge of the U.S. Court of   
   Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a traditional   
   steppingstone to the Supreme Court — colored Democrats'   
   reception to Gorsuch since his nomination Jan. 31.   
      
   A graduate of Columbia University, Harvard Law School and the   
   University of Oxford, Gorsuch arrived at the Senate with a   
   glamorous pedigree. His mother, Anne Gorsuch Burford, was   
   administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in the   
   Reagan administration until she was forced out following a   
   dispute with Congress. He clerked for two Supreme Court justices   
   before embarking on a legal career that included a high-ranking   
   Justice Department post.   
      
   For the past 10-plus years on the 10th Circuit, Gorsuch has   
   developed a reputation as a strict "textualist" and   
   "originalist" — like Scalia, someone who reads statutes and the   
   Constitution literally and seeks to interpret them through the   
   eyes of their authors. He is known as a expansive thinker and a   
   facile writer whose law clerks often go on to bigger and better   
   things — including similar postings at the Supreme Court.   
      
   Trump's choice of Gorsuch from a list of 21 potential nominees   
   created in conjunction with the Federalist Society and equally   
   conservative Heritage Foundation soothed Republicans but enraged   
   Democrats, who also complained about "dark money" spent on his   
   behalf by other right-wing groups during the confirmation   
   process. In the end, the campaign on Gorsuch's behalf helped to   
   unite Republicans but wooed less than a handful of Democrats to   
   his side, leaving McConnell to deploy the nuclear option.   
      
   "We know he’ll be independent," Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck   
   Grassley, R-Iowa, said Friday. "He told us that he’s his own   
   man, that no man speaks for him. He’s not beholden to the   
   president who appointed him. And his testimony shows that he’s   
   not beholden to us, either. He wouldn’t compromise his   
   independence to win confirmation votes. He passed the test. This   
      
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