Promises made, promises kept.
Tuesday evening’s announcement by President Trump that he would nominate Judge Neil Gorsuch of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to fill the seat left vacant by the untimely passing of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the Lion of the Court, fulfills the promises then-candidate Trump made during the presidential campaign to appoint a justice in the mold of Scalia.
Judge Gorsuch’s elevation to Justice Gorsuch will be a home run. A grand slam, in fact.
And that means … it was worth it.
All the long days, weeks, months, and years spent identifying, recruiting, organizing, and mobilizing millions of grassroots activists across the nation, in the service of filling the Court vacancy with a nominee in the mold of Scalia, were time well spent.
Exit polls showed that 70 percent of America’s voters cited the Supreme Court pick as an important factor in their voting decision. And among the 21 percent who said it was the “most important” factor in their decision-making, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by 57-40 percent.
Those voters - Tea Party Patriots among them - have every right and reason to be excited this week.
Judge Gorsuch is an originalist, a textualist, a judge who has made clear in his decade of service on the federal bench that he believes the law must be followed, no matter where it leads.
“In our legal order it is for Congress and not the courts to write new laws. It is the role of judges to apply, not alter, the work of the people’s representatives,” he once wrote. “A judge who likes every result he reaches is very likely a bad judge, reaching for results he prefers rather than those the law compels.”
In Cordova v. City of Albuquerque, he wrote, “Ours is the job of interpreting the Constitution. And that document isn’t some inkblot on which litigants may project their hopes and dreams […] but a carefully drafted text judges are charged with applying according to its original public meaning. If a party wishes to claim a Constitutional right, it is incumbent on him to tell us … where it lies, not to assume or stipulate with the other side that it must be in there someplace.”
In that sense - perhaps the most important sense for a judge - he is in the mold of the late Justice Scalia, and his elevation to the Supreme Court would restore to the Supreme Court the same balance that existed before Scalia’s passing.
Gorsuch’s academic credentials are impeccable - BA with honors and Phi Beta Kappa at Columbia University; JD, cum laude and Truman Scholar at Harvard Law School; D. Phil. and Marshall Scholar at Oxford University.
He clerked for Judge David Sentelle of the U.S Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (recognized by many as the second most powerful court in the land) and not one, but two Supreme Court Justices - Byron “Whizzer” White (appointed by John F. Kennedy) and Anthony Kennedy (appointed by Ronald Reagan).
And when he was nominated ten years ago for a seat on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, the American Bar Association unanimously rated him “well qualified,” its highest rating. His nomination was so uncontroversial that only one senator even attended his hearing, and the United States Senate approved him unanimously.
You read that right. No objection from Senate Democrats. Not a peep from Chuck Schumer, or Pat Leahy, or Dianne Feinstein … or, for that matter, from Barack Obama, or Joe Biden, or Hillary Clinton, or John Kerry, or Harry Reid, or even the late Ted Kennedy.
But that was then, and this is now.
And that was for a seat on a Circuit Court of Appeals, and this is for a seat on the Supreme Court.
Consequently, Democrats will wail and gnash teeth, and try to get all the rest of us to forget that they had no objection to Neil Gorsuch when he was nominated to the federal bench a decade ago, because that is what Democrats do when a conservative is nominated for a seat on the Supreme Court.
Senate Democrats have already announced they will filibuster against the confirmation of Judge Gorsuch.
The Senate Democrats’ reflexive, knee-jerk opposition to the President’s nominee puts them on the wrong side - of history, of the election results, and of the American people’s will.
At Tea Party Patriots, we are making it easy for Americans to be heard. Our petition in support of Neil Gorsuch is one of the simplest ways to let the Senate know that you stand behind President Trump and his nominee. We’re also launching a nationwide house party initiative so everyday Americans can come together with friends and family to take action in support of the nominee. Democrats should expect to hear a deafening response from the majority of Americans who want Neil Gorsuch confirmed.
Last year, the Democrats misread Americans’ strong desire to protect the balance of the Supreme Court and to put an end to “business as usual” in Washington, D.C. That’s why the election results caught them by such sheer surprise. And, nonsensically, rather than learning from history, they seem absolutely determined to double down on their disconnectedness from the American people.
What’s the line from Napoleon? “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” In their obstinacy, the Senate Democrats have proven they would prefer to repeat their same mistakes rather than heed the election results and respect the will of the American people.
The 2016 election was largely about this Supreme Court battle. And, hey, if the Democrats want to make 2018 about this same issue, we’re game.
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