WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Friday confirmed President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, filling a 14-month vacancy after the death of Antonin Scalia.
Gorsuch will be sworn in Monday by Chief Justice John Roberts at a private ceremony at the Supreme Court and later at a public White House event by Justice Anthony Kennedy. Gorsuch soon will begin confronting cases of consequence, including one involving separation of church and state that the justices will take up in less than two weeks.
At 49, he is decades younger than several of the other justices -- two are in their 80s and one is 78.
Vice President Mike Pence presided as the Senate voted 54-45 in favor of Gorsuch, a veteran of Denver's 10th U.S. Circuit of Appeals.
[U.S. SUPREME COURT: More on Gorsuch, current justices, voting relationships]
The outcome was a major victory for Trump, his first big congressional win.
In a statement, Trump called Gorsuch's confirmation "one of the most transparent and accessible in history, and his judicial temperament, exceptional intellect, unparalleled integrity, and record of independence makes him the perfect choice to serve on the Nation's highest court." Trump added later that Gorsuch "will serve the American people with distinction as he continues to faithfully and vigorously defend our Constitution."
Trump also thanked Scalia and his wife, Maureen, "for their immeasurable service to this country."
The judge won support from 51 of the chamber's Republicans, including Sens. John Boozman and Tom Cotton, R-Ark. Three Democrats up for re-election in states Trump won last fall also voted for Gorsuch: Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Donnelly of Indiana. GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia, who has been recovering from back surgery, did not vote.
"I'm pleased to vote for him. I think he's a fine jurist with an accomplished record and he'll be an outstanding Supreme Court justice," Cotton said after the vote.
Boozman called it "a really important vote."
"I think Judge Gorsuch is very well-qualified and I think he'll make a great Supreme Court justice," he said.
Gorsuch's name was on a list of potential choices Trump produced during the campaign, and was vetted by conservative groups including the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation. That unusual external review omitted consultation with Senate Democrats, contributing to bitter Democrat complaints about the way the whole process was handled.
Gorsuch is expected to join a conservative-leaning voting bloc of justices, making five on the nine-member court. As soon as Thursday, he could take part in his first private conference, where justices decide whether to hear cases.
Among those cases: a petition from gun-rights activists asking the court to find for the first time that the Second Amendment right to keep a gun for self-defense extends to carrying firearms outside the home. There is also a plea on behalf of business owners who want to be able to refuse their wedding services to gay couples.
In the coming weeks, the court is likely to decide whether to intervene in a lower court's decision that voting-law changes in North Carolina were passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature to diminish the influence of minority-group voters.
And when the justices gather for their last round of oral arguments this month, Gorsuch stands to hold the deciding vote in the term's major case involving the separation of church and state. Missouri cited a clause in its state constitution barring any government support for any religious group to eliminate a church-affiliated school's application to a program to improve playground safety. The case was accepted when Scalia was alive, and the delay in scheduling it for oral argument might indicate the court is divided.
Way to confirmation
Friday's Senate vote was the final act in a corrosive political confrontation that began with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's decision immediately after Scalia's death in February 2016 to hold the seat open for the next president to fill, rather than convene hearings for former President Barack Obama's nominee, Judge Merrick Garland.
Democrats seethed for months over Garland's treatment, and under pressure from liberal activists fuming over the Trump presidency, they mounted a filibuster Thursday to block Gorsuch. McConnell, R-Ky., immediately responded, as expected, by leading his Republicans in a unilateral rules change to lower the vote threshold for Supreme Court nominees from 60 to a simple majority in the 100-member Senate.
That paved the way for Gorsuch's confirmation vote Friday but left lawmakers of both parties bemoaning the undoing of comity in the Senate and warning that the 60-vote filibuster barrier on regular legislation, a key tool to force bipartisan cooperation, could be next to go. McConnell vowed that would not happen on his watch.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said of the rules change that won approval: "It will make the cooling saucer of the Senate considerably hotter, and I believe it will make the Supreme Court a more partisan place."
But McConnell and some of his allies argued that they simply were returning to a time not long ago when judicial filibusters were rarely practiced and Supreme Court filibusters essentially unheard of.
"The practical result of where we are now is we're back to where we were as late as 2000," said McConnell, pointing out that even Clarence Thomas got onto the court without a filibuster, despite highly contentious confirmation hearings regarding sexual harassment claims from Anita Hill.
McConnell's decision last year to hold the Supreme Court seat open was seen as a gamble, questioned even by some in his party, but it's now viewed by Republicans as a political master stroke. McConnell told reporters Friday that he viewed it as "the most consequential decision I've ever been involved in."
Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma said of McConnell's tactic: "No. 1, it's courageous. No. 2 it's genius, in that order, because he knew how much criticism he would get."
Information for this article was contributed by Erica Werner, Mark Sherman, Mary Clare Jalonick, Stephen Ohlemacher and Matthew Daly of The Associated Press; by Ed O'Keefe, Robert Barnes, Sean Sullivan, David Weigel and Kelsey Snell of The Washington Post; and by Frank E. Lockwood of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
A Section on 04/08/2017