A memorable moment of calm enveloped Donald Trump’s chaotic, confrontational presidency on Jan. 31 when he introduced Judge Neil Gorsuch as his Supreme Court nominee. Gorsuch appeared so learned and earnest compared to the peripatetic Trump that you had to wonder if someone had mixed up the dance cards.
But no, Trump wanted a conservative judge, and that’s what he selected, in the best sense of the phrase. In last week’s Senate confirmation hearings, Gorsuch showed himself to be committed to the principle that judges should rule on the law as written, and apply it equally to all.
Ah, but the real world is messier than a legal scholar’s mind. That tension suffused the Senate hearings. Important court cases arise when the law or situation isn’t clear-cut. So how, for example, would Gorsuch rule on a crucial issue such as preserving abortion rights?
Like all nominees for the court these days, he wouldn’t talk in specifics about cases he might rule on in the future.
Democrats’ questioning was aggressive. But their attempts to trip up Gorsuch, revealing deficiencies that might disqualify him, elicited the opposite: unassailable assurances by Gorsuch that he would decide each case on the merits, based on the law as written, applied to the world as it is today. Democrats struggled to find offense with that judicial philosophy. After each attack, they were forced to move on.
Here is a judge who knows the law and knows the role of the judiciary: He isn’t on the bench to make law, he’s there to interpret it faithfully, because the separation of powers among the branches of government serves our democracy. Sometimes the result benefits liberal positions, sometimes conservative.
Some of Gorsuch’s critics think judges should be creative depending on the political climate—to treat laws differently on a cold night than a warm one. Those critics suggest that they fear Gorsuch won’t follow the law, but the opposite is more true: They fear he will. Gorsuch should be confirmed.