CASPER, Wyo. (AP) - New U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch comes from a family with deep ties to Wyoming and plenty of political support from within the conservative state.
After a contentious vetting process in the U.S. Senate, Gorsuch was sworn in Monday to replace Antonin Scalia, who died last year.
Gorsuch’s mother was born in Casper and led the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under Ronald Reagan. His family was prominent in the Saratoga area back when Wyoming was a territory.
Gorsuch’s mother, Anne Gorsuch Burford, was born in Casper. She held bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Colorado-Boulder. She died in 2004 at age 62.
She served in the Colorado Legislature before President Ronald Reagan nominated her to lead the EPA. Her less than two years as EPA chief included rolling back regulation and steep cuts to the agency.
She resigned under pressure after the EPA settled a lawsuit filed by the U.S. House of Representatives over a subpoena for documents.
“The period of Gorsuch’s reign was really relatively brief - it was less than two years - but she did an awful lot to change the agency,” Joel Mintz, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University and author of “Enforcement at the EPA,” told the Casper Star-Tribune reports (https://bit.ly/2oqYkU4)
Gorsuch’s great-great-grandfather, Frederick Wolf, was a German immigrant who worked for the Union Pacific Railroad. Wolf built the Hotel Wolf in Saratoga.
The Hotel Wolf is still open and is a landmark in Saratoga.
Wolf’s granddaughter, Freda Henrietta Munz, married into the Gorsuch family in Colorado.
Neil Gorsuch was born in Denver and holds a law degree from Harvard University. He was a judge on Denver’s 10th U.S. Circuit of Appeals for a decade.
Wyoming’s all-Republican congressional delegation supported Gorsuch’s rise to the nation’s highest court. Sen. John Barrasso praised his “integrity, intelligence and independence.”
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Information from: Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune, https://www.trib.com
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