NOW Activists protested outside the Supreme Court tonight after Donald Trump's Supreme Court pick was announced. Colorado's Neil Gorsuch, a staunch conservative is his choice. The 49 year old Gorsuch has been on the 10th Court of Appeals since 2006. Trump tweeted @realDonaldTrump "Hope you like my nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch for the United States Supreme Court. He is a good and brilliant man, respected by all."
According to the Denver Post his family has ties to the Republican party locally and in Washington. "For conservatives, Gorsuch meets conservative standards as an originalist and a textualist — someone who interprets the Constitution and statutes as they were originally written. "Gorsuch is best known nationally for taking the side of religious organizations that opposed parts of the Affordable Care Act that compelled coverage of contraceptives. In one of those cases, Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby Stores, he wrote of the need for U.S. courts to give broad latitude to religious beliefs."
The Center for Reproductive Rights says Gorsuch's record on reproductive rights must be questioned during the nomination hearings. For NOW President Terry O'Neil, the nomination, "is the most egregious insult to democracy in the history of Supreme Court nominations. Tonight, NOW proudly stands with coalition partners and allies, at the highest court in the land to protest this illegitimate nomination.
As Senator Merkley has said, this is a stolen seat. The theft began when Mitch McConnell stacked the deck against President Barack Obama’s right to fill a vacancy on the Court by refusing to even hold hearings on Judge Merrick Garland.
He concocted, out of whole cloth, the fiction that it was standard practice not to confirm Supreme Court nominations during a presidential election year. As was widely reported last year, about 14 justices were confirmed during election years, including Ronald Reagan’s nomination of Anthony Kennedy in 1988.
What was unusual about the nomination of Merrick Garland was not that it occurred during an election year, but that for the past eight years white male supremacist ideology has driven so many Republican senators to feel entitled to obstruct the nation’s first African American president at every turn, including filling a vacant Supreme Court seat.
Mitch McConnell short-circuited the democratic process in order to give Donald Trump an unearned shot at picking the next Supreme Court Justice. We say no. This week, Donald Trump has shown all too clearly his contempt for the rule of law. He cannot be allowed to continue his larcenous assault on the Constitution with an illegitimate nomination to the Supreme Court."
