Here’s a quick rundown of what we know from Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch’s past cases and public statements:
- He’s spoken out against the immigration ban and specifically stating that he thinks Donald Trump’s character is disgusting and that Trump is not fit for office.
- He has denied the government the right to back out of a previously granted path to citizenship rights to illegal immigrants, claiming that’s a violation of no ex-post facto, a very basic tenet of the rule of law in the United States.
- He’s against employment discrimination in the hiring process, but he’s totally okay with firing someone for: not wanting to freeze to death, being gay, being the wrong denomination of Christianity or being any religion the employer doesn’t like, or for pretty much any Biblical reason. So…you can get fairly hired but you probably won’t stay there long unless you lie about who you are.
- He opposes abortion. Enough said there!
- He’s apparently okay with the NRA and might interpret the 2nd Amendment more to their liking, meaning less gun control, more severely mentally ill people owning guns and fewer procedural improvements to the already poor background check system that allows anyone to buy a gun. But hey, maybe he’ll decide on religious restrictions to gun ownership to go along with that religiously motivated firing procedure.
- He’s apologized for his previous ruling that special-needs kids only need minimal support in schools and that any progress, even the tiniest amount, is enough to prove the school is doing enough to help. He said he’s okay with just “babysitting” those kids. Horrible.
- He’s pro-torture, which is to say he was no problem using enhanced interrogation techniques. He’s also continued to support how the United States entered the Iraq War and supports our continued presence and operations there.
- Oh! and he wants a job interview to include questions specifically for females about their intentions because he theorizes that some women just want to scam the employer for the maternity benefits. Seriously? I thought he was against employment discrimination.
Whew! Well, I suppose it’s good to have a lot of information about someone you might have on the Supreme Court. Sorry for all that, though. There’s definitely a lot to go through. However, it’s pretty clear, with the current 4-4 split of the current 8 Justices, that we need to be sure how Gorsuch would rule.
Now, it’s been said and I rather agree that Gorsuch is somewhat centrist and way more centrist that how he’s being described by the Democrats. That said, you can’t rule in fractions. A vote of 5-to-4 would occur even if he’s only a hair to the right or left on a decision. That said, it’s likely that, given his record, he’ll likely abstain more than any Justice ever. He did a pretty good job of that on the Tenth Circuit already.
Let’s just pick a few that I haven’t already written about: torture, students with disabilities, and employment discrimination. You can find my views on the immigration ban, abortion, or that weird maternity leave insanity in my other articles.
So, he’s okay with torture. I mean, he’s basically saying it’s totally okay to subject someone to extreme conditions in order to extract information from them. In other words, he’s saying it’s not unconstitutional. He’s not just stating his opinion. It’s his job to interpret the law, not interpret what policies should be. So, according to the law, he thinks it’s okay.