Wednesday round-up
on Feb 8, 2017 at 7:16 am
Coverage and commentary continue on the Gorsuch nomination, including both the confirmation process and the judge’s record in specific areas of the law. At Roll Call, Bridget Bowman and Niels Lesniewski report that “Judge Neil Gorsuch’s Senate dance card is filling up with Democrats who could be key to his confirmation to the Supreme Court,” noting that much “of Gorsuch’s time will be spent with Democrats up for re-election in 2018 in states President Donald Trump won, who could face pressure to support Gorsuch’s nomination.”
In The New York Times, Adam Liptak reports on the light Gorsuch’s writings on euthanasia and assisted suicide might shed on the nominee’s views on abortion, noting that Gorsuch “saw no necessary constitutional connection between a right to abortion and one to assisted suicide or euthanasia.” In The Wall Street Journal, Brent Kendall and Jess Bravin report that the judge’s “commitment to collegiality and his attentiveness to the judiciary’s reputation” will “bring a different dynamic” to the court from that created by the more “confrontational” Justice Antonin Scalia. At the Associated Press, Sam Hananel and Laurie Kellman report on Gorsuch’s record in cases involving labor and workplace issues, noting that the judge’s “conservative approach could tip the balance in labor rights cases and other high court clashes that have split the court.”
At JD Supra Business Advisor, Rachel Apter and others also look at Gorsuch’s business jurisprudence, concluding that if “the Senate confirms Judge Gorsuch’s nomination, we expect the Court to return to its business-friendly leanings.” Commentary on Gorsuch’s record in labor and employment law cases comes from Andrew Strom in On Labor, who expresses “serious doubt on whether he would truly respect the role of Congress when it comes to drafting legislation that protects the well-being of the American people,” and argues that if “Judge Gorsuch gets his way, instead of enacting broadly worded protections for workers and the public, Congress would need to draft laws that anticipate every circumstance that might come to pass.”
In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, E. Donald Elliott argues that moderate Democrats should support the Gorsuch nomination because “among judicial conservatives, Judge Gorsuch is as good as it possibly gets,” and because one “way or another, Judge Gorsuch is going to be confirmed”; the “question is how much damage will be done to the country first.” A contrary view comes from Philip Rotner in The Huffington Post, who maintains that “Democrats in the Senate should do whatever they can to block the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court,” and that although they “will almost certainly lose this battle,” “they should fight it anyway,” because “if they don’t they will lose whatever standing they have left with their increasingly energized and mobilized base.” And in an op-ed in Politico Magazine, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) argues that the “most important factor in assessing a Supreme Court nominee in the time of the Trump administration is whether or not the potential justice will be an independent check on an executive who may act outside our nation’s laws and the Constitution,” and that it “remains to be seen if Judge Gorsuch is able to fulfill that important constitutional role.”
UCI Law Talks (podcast) features a discussion of the Gorsuch nomination, including “the judge’s originalism philosophy, whether Senate Democrats will filibuster the nomination, and if and when the judge will ultimately take a seat on the bench of the country’s highest court.” Another podcast on the nomination, at Advice and Consent, discusses how the confirmation debate over Gorsuch will be framed.
Briefly:
- At SSRN, Rick Hasen offers an analysis of “the ‘race or party’ question in election law these days” that touches on “a number of pending (and perhaps soon to be pending) Supreme Court cases on racial gerrymandering, partisan gerrymandering, and vote denial.”
- The World and Everything in It features a discussion of oral arguments in Lewis v. Clarke, which asks whether tribal sovereignty bars a lawsuit in state court against a limousine driver who rear-ended the plaintiffs while driving his passengers home from a tribe-owned casino, and Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp., a challenge to the use of structured dismissals to resolve Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases.
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