Okay, this post has been a long time coming. Neil Gorsuch, the nominee to fill Antonin Scalia’s spot on the Supreme Court. This one was less familiar to me. I needed to do some research. Naturally, you’d want to learn how he’s ruled in the past in order to predict the future. Okay, so, why would Trump pick this guy. Actually, it’s hard to tell. He’s more centrist. His manner is not extreme. He is, however, pretty much in line with or abstinent from Trump. That is to say he’s likely to either rule in favor of Trump or abstain altogether or even rule that it’s not up to the Supreme Court because the Office of the President has the power to make a certain decision and it’s not up to the Court.
I don’t think this post will be as much an attempt to be funny as have been others. Frankly, there’s not a lot of material for it. So let’s just get into it. On which cases has he ruled or abstained, how did he rule, and what does that mean for the next thirty and likely godforsaken years while he’s on the Supreme Court? Seriously, it’s not good. It’s not horrible, but it’s not good to have Gorsuch as the tiebreaker on a Court that’s currently 4-4 and has left-leaning Justices that will likely resign or pass away in the first 20% of those 30 years. So, he’s somewhat centrist, let’s say right of center, but that’s all it takes to create a 5-4 vote in favor of Republican values.
Here’s a quick rundown.
- 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.
I’m not totally against it, by the way. I know that sucks, but if someone has committed a crime against specifically the United States as his or her stated victim, and they are not and would never choose to earnestly apply to be a U.S. citizen and the torture isn’t taking place in the United States, then I think all of this falls under military jurisdiction, which means everything we’re doing is part of a fight. I’m not sure we should be trying to de-escalate the situation when some people are actually reading our Constitution to identify ways to get away with things because they know we’re kind to everyone and assume innocence before proving guilt. So, if they are going to abuse us, then there’s really no attempt on their part to peacefully coexist, in which case, even during containment, it’s still a battle. They’re still fighting. They’re still withholding information as a means of offense. However, in the case where false information is provided to get someone to stop beating you or when the information doesn’t even exist and you’re torturing someone because you assume without proof that they do have that invisible information, then that’s obviously a terrible problem. However, you can’t know whether each individual person is a criminal or not, and in a war zone, sometimes mistakes are made. To do nothing would be insane.
Okay, students with disabilities don’t deserve to learn and just need a “babysitter?” I told myself I wouldn’t use obscenities in this blog. I told myself I wouldn’t use obscenities in this blog. I told myself I wouldn’t use obscenities in this blog.
Gorsuch obviously doesn’t think there are any jobs for students with disabilities upon graduation. They could never back groceries, therapize others with disabilities who are having trouble adjusting to society or social situations or their work situation, participate in the Special Olympics, or lead absolutely normal lives like the rest of us. I mean, there will be challenges, but they can certainly work in basic customer service. They can also have a job coach that is paid to follow them around at their job to make sure they don’t lose their concentration and don’t forget how to properly greet someone. In that case, they can even work a cash register, operate light machinery, or work in a kitchen washing dishes. I’m sure they can do much than these jobs, too, but Gorsuch apparently thinks it’s better to toss them out like garbage. I can’t believe it.
Now let’s talk about employment discrimination. Gorsuch thinks you can’t let your social biases affect who you hire, like can’t hire someone because they’re white or withhold a job because they’re not. You can’t ask someone about their religion in an interview. BUT OMG YOU ALSO CAN’T ACCUSE FEMALE POTENTIAL HIRES OF MATERNITY LEAVE ABUSE AS IF THAT’S THE ONLY REASON THEY WANT TO WORK THERE! NEIL MCGILL GORSUCH! GO TO YOUR EFFING ROOM! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!
Well, soon, maybe you can do all those things. I mean, really? What kind of proof can a female provide that she’s not in it for the maternity benefits if they’re already assuming she is?
That aside, Gorsuch apparently is very much in favor of fair hiring, but he’s okay with being fired for totally unfair reasons, reasons that he would say are not unconstitutional, reasons that he would say are totally legal based on his expert interpretation of the Constitution. You may have heard Al Franken, the comedian turned Senator from Minnesota wail on Gorsuch about a long-haul trucker stuck in freezing temperatures in a broken-down truck in a Minnesota winter (temperatures way below zero). The trucker was fired because he left the goods he was delivering in the trailer of the truck while he drove the rest of the truck to some place to get warm so he wouldn’t freeze to death.
He’d already lost feeling in his feet and the numbness had progressed to his chest and, ya know, where his vital organs are. So, he was fired for leaving whatever stupid things he was delivering on the side of the highway so he could go save his life. Gorsuch thinks that’s okay. He thinks you shouldn’t leave those products on the side of the road in any circumstance. Now, the brakes on the truck were shot, and the truck had no heat. You couldn’t drive the truck with the trailer on the road because you wouldn’t be able to stop on time if you had to stop suddenly, and the trucker knew that from his training and from the company policies. So, he’d called the company several times.
Since the truck’s heater was broken, he’s sitting there on the side of the highway, basically dying, and he falls asleep after the company makes him wait hours and hours. Hypothermia sets in. He actually wakes up, drives off to get warm because he just has to, despite what he knows about possibly getting fired, and then he gets fired. So, get fired or die. Not the best two options, but fortunately, he chose to stand up to the company. Gorsuch apparently thinks the company “gave him the legal option to stay in his vehicle” (Fox News).
So basically, when it comes to getting hired, you’re fine. When it comes to getting fired, Gorsuch would probably fire you himself for fun or perhaps just watch you die if he wanted to have a real good time.
So, okay, what the heck are we going to do about Gorsuch? Well, McConnell went all nuclear so clearly, he’s going to be confirmed. There’s not a whole lot we can do. However, I think Chuck Schumer and the other Democrats did a good job to show what will happen when Trump tries to nominate another replacement. I think that was mostly their point, by the way, to punish the Republicans for their abuse of Merrick Garland.
HOWEVER, one key point: now a Democratic president only needs a simple majority to ensure that a Justice can be confirmed. That’s new now. There’s no super majority on that for Supreme Court Justice confirmations anymore. So, when we have a Democratic president! Yep! It’ll be so much easier. Someone PLEASE protect Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the other SANE Justices.
So, again, what do we do? Well, like I said, he’s kinda centrist, he’s not the worst, and we made huge progress by getting a simple majority so that’s actually really great. ALSO, we had five Justices appointed by Republicans presidents before Scalia died so I’m not sure how much will change. I mean, the Supreme Court has done some good things with those five Republican appointees so maybe it’s not so bad.
I want to make one note about his ruling on path to citizenship, though. Gorsuch did rule that, if the government already got someone on the path to citizenship, it couldn’t pass a law that takes people already on that path off that path. He cited a very simple and foundational tenet of our laws that states that you can’t apply news to the past situations. In other words, if something is not illegal when you do it, you can’t be charged because the government creates a law especially for you. That’s an incredibly important part of the rule of law. The law is ultimate decider, and if you can write whatever you want after the “crime” is committed just so you can put anyone you want in jail, then there isn’t really any rule of law anymore. Then you’d be in China. They have a constitution (the WTO made them do it–great success that was, geez!), they have laws, and they even say everyone has the right to free and fair election and that anyone can run for office. Hmm? Sounds great, yes? Well, they ignore their laws and punish anyone they want and let anyone they want go free. So, they have laws, but they don’t have the rule of law. So, it’s good that Gorsuch at least knows the basics and that he has been faithful to the law even though it’s not clear whether he actually cares about immigrants. So, he’s not as bad as Trump and he gets a couple points for some things he’s done. Also, he abstains a lot, which is good when you have nothing good to say. However, “not as a bad as Trump” isn’t really saying much. In fact, that’s the reason I’m writing this blog.
There’s no call to action in this case. There’s nothing we can do. However, I know three years from now I can go back to this post and my many other posts and longer writings and see what I felt today and throughout this administration so I can turn back the clock in my head and vote for someone better than Obama or for someone that is the best we’ve ever had rather than someone who’s just better than Trump. That’s a low bar.
Please don’t forget that, and please don’t forget where we were before Trump. We can get there again. Whatever he takes away, we can get it all back in a second, but we have to vote in favor of that, which means we have to believe it’s possible, and it really is. We’ll get through this.