Particularly annoying is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer who said yesterday that Gorsuch is going to have an uphill battle to obtain Senate confirmation. Schumer stated, "The bottom line is very simple, and that is that Gorsuch did not acquit himself well at the hearings and did not impress our caucus."
Yet if Gorsuch is so unimpressive a figure then why was he was confirmed unanimously by the Senate to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on July 20, 2006? Think about it. Think about all the Democrats who were in the Senate at the time - future President Barack Obama, future Vice-President Joe Biden, 2016 Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, 2004 Democrat presidential nominee John Kerry, future Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Christopher Dodd, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Patrick Leahy, Ted Kennedy, and drum roll please....Chuck Schumer. And none of them had an unkind word about Gorsuch that July day. More than a decade later,
It's not like Senate Democrats care only about the Supreme Court. Keep in mind many of these Senate Democrats were crucial in keeping the likes of Miguel Estrada and Charles Pickering off the Appeals Courts during the Bush 43 years.
Last month, Schumer wrote a New York Times editorial piece against Gorsuch in which he questioned his ability to be independent and compared him unfavorably with Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts:
My fellow senators should know that Judge Gorsuch was eerily similar to Judge Roberts. He played the part but was entirely unwilling to engage in a substantive discussion that — crucially — could have given me confidence in his independence as a judge.
Schumer's use of Chief Justice Roberts as an argument against confirming Gorsuch is an odd one. When President Bush appointed Roberts in 2005 who would have known that nearly seven years later he would have wrote the majority opinion upholding Obamacare? Who can say that in seven years from now that Gorsuch won't strike down a significant policy of the Trump Administration or uphold the constitutionality of a policy of a future Democrat Administration?
But in the eyes of Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats, Neil Gorsuch is the worst person in the history of humanity and must be kept of the Supreme Court at all costs, but are perfectly content for him to keep his place on the 10th Circuit bench.
As arbitrary and capricious as the behavior of President Trump is, Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats are hardly paragons of virtue. This isn't to say that there aren't grounds for Senate Democrats to oppose Trump. But where it concerns Neil Gorsuch, Schumer and Senate Democrats are opposing Gorsuch for the sake of opposing him. I wish Senate Democrats (and the The Left at large) would choose their battles more wisely.
Despite himself, President Trump will make good decisions from time to time and appointing Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court is one of them.
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