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Breaking: Trump announces supreme court pick

President Donald Trump has announced he has chosen Neil Gorsuch as his nominee for Supreme Court.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38813137

Reply 1

username2950448

Gorsuch is a proponent of "originalism" and "textualism".

He seems to be a like-for-like (of sorts) replacement of Scalia.

Thoughts?

Reply 2

IDF

Doctorate from Oxford, ay :holmes:

Reply 3

username2950448

Gorsuch is a vocal opponent of judicial activism; is pro-life; supports 'religious freedom'; supports the death penalty; and dislikes liberals using the courts as a mechanism for social change.

Reply 4

username2950448

Critics of Gorsuch are focussing on his decision in the Hobby Lobby case, "that corporations can have religious beliefs and are entitled to exemptions from the law".

How should Dems react to this? Mark Cuban has suggested that they ought to attempt to negotiate a 'deal' with Trump, exchanging a quick confirmation for Gorsuch in return for a compromise on his behalf.

Reply 5

El Salvador

Oxford continues to rule the world.

When will the tabs?

Current supreme court justices (8) -
Harvard: 4
Princeton: 3
Yale: 3
Oxford: 2
Stanford: 2
LSE: 1
Cornwell: 1
Columbia: 1
Holy Cross: 1

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 6

username2950448

Original post by Little Toy Gun

Oxford continues to rule the world.

When will the tabs?

Remind me where the only current British ICJ judge studied? :wink:

Reply 7

El Salvador

Original post by Palmyra

Remind me where the only current British ICJ judge studied? :wink:

A totally irrelevant and practically powerless court tbh.

Reply 8

username2950448

Original post by Little Toy Gun

A totally irrelevant and practically powerless court tbh.

Please, the U.S. SC is a politicised ****-show, the ICJ is the true measure of prestige.

Reply 9

nulli tertius

Original post by Palmyra

Gorsuch is a proponent of "originalism" and "textualism".

He seems to be a like-for-like (of sorts) replacement of Scalia.

Thoughts?

First I must declare an interest. Gorsuch, if confirmed, adds another jewel to my college's crown.

It is perfectly obvious that a Republican President would appoint a conservative justice.

It is one of the most sensible things Trump has done. He has appointed a candidate with clear academic, intellectual and judicial records. Any attempt to block Gorsuch will be seen as mere partisan points scoring (cf Harriet Miers). Obviously the previous senate did this to Obama's pick, but Trump as a Republican outsider wasn't implicated in this.

Gorsuch is a strong pro-life judge but his emphasis, and his Oxford thesis, was on assisted suicide and euthanasia rather than abortion. Somehow I doubt he will be electrocuting juveniles and mental defectives any-time soon.

I am not sure about the comparison with Scalia that is often made. Scalia was very keen on First Amendment rights (he was probably he most consistent flag-burner on the court) whereas Gorsuch doesn't seem to have much track record.

I have seen Gorsuch described as an originalist but I would like to see some evidence of this. I think too often originalism gets mixed up with textualism. It is clear that Gorsuch is a textualist but that is the default position of most judges in the common law world.

Scalia's originalism wasn't textualism when it came to the Constitution.. He was applying to 18th century legislators what he criticised judges for doing with 20th and 21st century legislators. He said that judges should just read what modern statutes said and not try to get into the minds of what the politicians intended because that led to a tendency to impose what the judge desires. Politics is a messy business is there is rarely any single common intent behind a statute and all a judge is doing is picking the intent he personally favours. However when he came to the Constitution, Scalia was looking at what the founders meant. Scalia's criticism of the modern process of legislation can equally be applied to the creation of the Constitution "Rhode Island won't accept this; Mr Jefferson wants this included, Mr Madison wants that".

There are two other criticisms that can be made of Scalia's originalism. Firstly it was undoubtedly selective. Scalia had no problem extending the freedom from state surveillance to forms of technology well beyond what Monroe and Hamilton could have contemplated and the freedom to bear arms wasn't merely the freedom to bear a minuteman rifle and a flintlock pistol. Secondly, the authors of the Constitution undoubtedly accepted, to a far greater extent than Scalia did, the doctrine of stare decisis, that a legal precedent made binding law. Why wasn't the acceptance that a wrong decision nevertheless made law part of "originalism"?

Is there any evidence that the criticisms that can be made of Scalia's originalism can also be made of Gorsuch?

I don't think there is much doubt that the employer would have won if Hobby Lobby had been a sole trader business rather than a corporation. Therefore, I don't think the decision is particularly significant.

Hobby Lobby was a "real" dispute i.e. a real government policy, Obamacare, not designed for the purpose of challenging religious views came up against genuine and not contrived religious beliefs. Many of the battles in America's culture wars are contrived battles; one side is trying to push back on the "space" of the other's views. Allowing corporations to exercise religious freedoms expands the scope for contrived battles and we don't know how the judiciary will react to this. Gorsuch has recently been in the pro-religion minority in the roadside crosses case. That is a contrived battle by an atheist organisation to ban privately erected crosses on state owned roadside verges which most people would regard as land common to the public rather than land occupied by the state government (such as a courthouse).

(edited 7 years ago)

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