Neil Gorsuch Originalism

Under the U.S. Constitution, this appointment is a lifelong position that will only be nullified if the judge resigns their post or dies in office. This creates serious contests within the partisan political environment found among federal representatives, for any candidate appointed to this post helps define the direction of the Supreme Court for the rest of their life. Thus, it is frequently believed that a president who appoints a judge to the Supreme Court is creating a legacy, helping to shape the direction of the laws for the country for a time long after their presidency has expired. This makes the selection of a judge a hotly contested process.

While there are some weaknesses in Greenburg account of these justice’s nominations and appointments, she provides detailed accounts of the events of the notations processes. These accounts explain why the Rehnquist Court, despite having seven conservative nominees the Rehnquist Court was deeply disappointing to those conservatives hoping to reverse decades of progressive

There are two major factors that affect the confirmation process of a president’s nominees; one is party affiliation. Party affiliation is very important when the Senate is confirming a nominee, because Senate confirms nominees by a ⅔ vote. This could be very crucial to the president and his or her nominee, because if the majority of the Senate is part of the opposing party, this becomes difficult for the president to get his nominee confirmed. The second political factor is qualification to become a judge or justice. The Senate does not want an unqualified judge who does not know what he or she is doing. It is important to the Senate to approve someone who has experience in the judicial field than someone who has no experience at all. The

Clarence Thomas is just the second African American justice to serve on the Supreme Court. His confirmation margin of fifty-two to forty-eight is the smallest margin in history. Until the very recent confirmations of both Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito, for the past twenty-five plus years, Thomas had been the last conservative to be named to the current court. Thomas’ confirmation hearings have gone down in history as those containing the most drama. His hearings would produce such intense arguments over race and gender. Thomas is on of the most publicly criticized justices in the history of the Supreme Court. The primary reason for that is the "uncommon" connection between his views and the color of

There is an open seat in the supreme court. Since the death of justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016, President Barack Obama has attempted to appoint judge Merrick Garland to fill this vacancy. However, the currently Republican U.S. Senate has refused to act on the nomination. This is not the first time the Senate has disagreed with the president's choice of nominee. The Senate confirms just around eighty percent of the president's nominations. There is a strong rationale behind this two-tiered appointment system. Seats in the Supreme Court are extremely important positions to hold; the Supreme Court has the role of interpreting the text of the Constitution and using that interpretation

There were many qualifications that made Justice Alito suitable to become a Supreme Court Justice. After succeeding law school, Justice Alito became a clerk for Third Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Leonard I. Garth in 1976 and 1977 in Newark, New

He broke a lot of the rules involved in a filibuster. However, the intention is still there. One thing that I was confused about is how this filibuster could prevent Judge Gorsuch from being confirmed. In fact, I was confused how any filibuster gets anything done. I thought the entire point of a filibuster was to tire out your opponents until the bend to your will. I now understand that filibustering increases the number of votes need to pace a law. I also know that the Republicans are considering exercising the “Nuclear Option” which would bypass the filibuster letting Gorsuch be elected with less than 60 votes. So really Gorsuch is going to be confirmed no matter what and hopefully the consequences won’t be

Over the course of the last eight years, the senate became hyper partisan due to unprecedented obstruction and filibuster. Republicans overused filibuster, resulting in the difficulty of Obama appointing any new persons. This is when Democrats brought the nuclear option before the senate. As this occurred, Senator Mitch McConnell stated, “I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, you’ll regret this. And you may regret this a lot sooner than you think” (Berman). Inadvertently, Mitch McConnell foreshadowed the future political events. McConnell is a Republican, transparently showing his feelings about the decisions made by the—at the time—majority. Contradicting McConnell’s statement, Senator John McCain expresses that, “This is a body blow to the institution, and I think we’re on a slippery slope.” Recalling past confirmation wars, McCain cannot simply agree with the idea relying completely on majority votes because of the controversy; however, he did follow suit with voting likewise other Republican senates (Kane). Even with disagreements, the Republican party as a whole still manages to shut down the Democratic

Gouverneur Morris was an original founding father in the early United States history at the creation of the independent nation. He had an eventful and expansive life that began with his advanced studies as a boy, and later led to his say in the drafting of one of the most important documents of the world, the Constitution of the United States. He was a well-rounded individual that practiced law, held important positions in politics, and was friends and advisors to the better known names of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson. He was a man of ideas and of trivialities, most importantly; he was a man that was respected by the public, who completed more for the United States in private, than they could have ever known.

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia was sworn into the Supreme Court on September 26, 1986 and was nominated by President Ronald Reagan. He took the place of Associate Justice William H. Renquist when Renquist was sworn in as Chief Justice. Justice Antonin Scalias' political affiliation is Republican. Justice Antonin started his career as a commercial lawyer for a brief period. He then taught Law at The University of Virginia. After about 4 years of teaching he went into government service starting under President Nixon and then President Ford. During President Carters reign, Justice Antonin left government service to go back to teaching law. He went back into government service under President Reagans administration and was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for Washington D.C. Justice Antonin Scalia attended Georgetown University and graduated as the Valedictorian of his class. He then went on to attend and graduate from Harvard Law School. He is married and had nine children.

Gorsuch is a textualist or a person who adheres strictly to a text. He also supports the legal philosophy of “originalism,” popularized by late Justice Antonin Scalia, whom Gorsuch would replace on the court, which holds that the constitution should be interpreted based on the framers’ beliefs at the time it was written. Gorsuch said in a speech at Case Western

Supreme court decisions are largely based on the political standpoint of the justices that serve. As of right now, there are currently three liberal justices, two moderates, and four conservatives. Having an unequal balance of justices who belong to a political view results in decisions that are made from the biases of the justices. Conservative justices often agree with conservative plaintiffs and the same goes for liberals. Typically the two sides will strike down cases from opposing sides. Some even say the Supreme Court leans towards making liberal decisions. It is no surprise that justices tend to vote depending on the group in which the speaker belongs to. Liberal and conservative judges also support cases that relate to their own group’s interests. All of the bias leads to unfair

Justice Ginsburg wrote a 36-page dissent joined by Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan. The first eight pages outline the extensive effort put forth by congress when researching, crafting and updating the 2009 version of the VRA. Justice Ginsburg argues that the question before the court ought to be whether or not congress acted appropriately within the authority granted under the constitution, namely the 15th amendment and the constitution’s Necessary and Proper Clause as interpreted in McCulloch v. Maryland, “all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted” to address the issue of discrimination in voting with appropriate legislation. The justice argues that the majority does not follow established precedent or tests when determining the ruling in this case as set out by MuCulloch v. Maryland, Norwest Austin, Katzenberg, or City of Rome. Ginsburg uses these examples to contend that the majority is improperly evaluating the case and creating an entirely new precedent that ignores current case law. Instead of ruling on the constitutional breadth of authority provided by the rationality test and the 15th amendment, the majority has chosen instead to pass judgment on the language in the

They allude to the unanimous 9-0 decisions the Supreme Court has made as a strong indication that the court remains neutral. Chief Justice Roberts also recently stated at a Boston law school: “We don’t work as Democrats or Republicans” (Savage, 2016, p. 1). Moreover, Justice Scalia, when defending his conservative vote in a 5-4 ruling, claimed: “’I prefer not to take part in the assembling of an apparent but specious unanimity’” (Kuhn, 2014, p. 3). However, decisions become unanimous only when the ideological stakes are not large enough. As for extremely controversial topics, nearly every single recent 5-4 decision has been divided perfectly along ideological lines. The conservative majority, praised by Republicans, has unbelievably struck down major parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, upheld an individual’s right to own guns, and has allowed unlimited corporate spending in campaigns (Kuhn, 2014). These types of decisions have caused the divided Supreme Court that we have today. Looking at a more psychological and scientific perspective on this overall issue, an investigation by Anna Harvey and Michael J. Woodruff of the New York University found that the direction of decision and vote of the Supreme Court is frequently contaminated by confirmation bias; justices seeking out facts and reasoning that

Gouverneur Morris was one of the main reasons why certain parts of the U.S. Constitution, like the Preamble, are phrased the way they are to this day (Morris Background). Of course, some of the Constitution’s main articles have changed over time due to amendments and supersessions (Article Notes), but the Preamble has remained the same, and coincidentally, Morris was mostly known for writing the final draft of that piece. He phrased the Preamble based on both his personal ideologies and his understanding of the Constitution’s goals, and thus he left a large impact on American legislature (Morris Background). On one hand, it is clear that Morris’ set of beliefs was a key factor in the way he wrote the Preamble.