GORSUCH DEEMED “WELL QUALIFIED” | Top-Ed From Gabe Roth | Don’t Give Up On Justice

March 10, 2017

The American Bar Association released its rating of JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH, nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, and it’s a good one. ABA found Gorsuch is “well qualified” – a judgement based on hundreds of interviews with folks who know Gorsuch’s work and qualifications. This is the highest rating that ABA gives.

Between 2005-2006, the Justice Department was struggling to determine how to treat terror suspects and justify warrantless wiretaps. During this era, JUDGE GORSUCH was working at the department, and now over 144,000 pages of documents from his tenure have been released to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The data dump follows requests from SENATORS CHUCK GRASSLEY AND DIANNE FEINSTEIN, as well as continued interest and a lawsuit from watchdog group Fix the Court. So while Gorsuch waits for the green light on his nomination, senators have some serious homework to do before his hearing begins on March 20.

Executive Director of Fix the Court, GABE ROTH, shares what he thinks is the single most important question the Judiciary Committee should ask JUDGE GORSUCH during his confirmation hearing. And here it is: “In recent years, the Supreme Court has become the most powerful, least accountable part of our federal government, as the justices have picked our president, allowed the extremely wealthy to greatly influence our elections and made countless decisions of life and death. In your view, has the court become too powerful?” Find out why this is the questions of all questions, and likely to be the “most illuminating question of the hearing.”

“As you know, I played arguably the single biggest role in having the vacancy there…I was prepared to take the heat because I knew that we would have looked completely foolish to have allowed a vacancy to be filled on the way out the door.” That was SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL in an interview yesterday saying he was happy with his decision to play politics with the Supreme Court and lead the obstruction of JUDGE MERRICK GARLAND’S nomination to the high court.

Liberal groups aren’t quite ready to give up the gun and hand over SCOTUS to Gorsuch. Yesterday, a group of liberal organizations and activists launched a coordinated campaign to stoke greater opposition inside the party. They’re also planning a nationwide “day of action” on April 1.

The Wall Street Journal addressed JUSTICE KENNEDY’S “new racial standard” he used to overturn verdicts due to evidence of racial bias shared during jury deliberations, and it’s not exactly supportive of the justice’s position. “The ruling is a step toward corrupting juries with political standards based on the progressive obsessions with race, gender and class.”

It has been more than 35 years since JUSTICE SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR started hosting an early morning exercise class on the basketball court located one floor above the courtroom. Even after leaving the bench, O’Connor hosted the class for a group of devoted women who live in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Sadly, the tradition will come to an end. Supreme Court spokeswoman, Kathleen Arberg, wrote in an email to AP that the time has come for the class to relocate due to low attendance and the former justice’s inability to oversee the group’s access to the private gym.

The California Golden Bears got a supreme visit this week from JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR. During the discussion, Justice Sotomayor said she was sad to see people losing confidence in judges, determining they are too political in their judgements. She encouraged her audience to view judges as “human beings who care deeply about what we’re doing…So don’t give up on us, ok?” We wouldn’t dare.