The Harvard Gazette asked HLS faculty what they thought of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch:
“He’s a brilliant, terrific guy who would do the court’s work with distinction.” — Laurence Tribe.
“He’s immensely qualified for the Supreme Court — an outstanding lawyer, and judge, and person.” — Jack Goldsmith.
“The Democrats have to let somebody go through. And there is not going to be anybody more acceptable than him.” — Charles Fried.
“The single most qualified person” on Trump’s list of 21 potential nominees, a judge “who is smart and has integrity. This is a man of enormous achievements” — Richard Lazarus.
“”What struck me was his real, genuine reverence for the Constitution and the rule of law that came through on a daily basis, As a judge, he believes that cases should be decided on the basis of the law and not on the basis of policy or personal preferences. His judicial record shows he applies the law impartially.”
“He’s really a kind, genuine and decent man,” she said. “He’s a great boss and a great mentor for all clerks, including myself. Any clerk you speak to, would just speak glowingly and lovingly of him.” — Jane Nitze, who served in the Obama administration after clerking first for Gorsuch and then for Sonia Sotomayor (Gorsuch serves as a feeder judge for liberal as well as conservative Justices).
More here (Liz Mineo, Harvard Gazette). And for those who prefer a West Coast academic view, Prof. Michael McConnell — a rare conservative on the Stanford law faculty who formerly served as a judge alongside Gorsuch on the Tenth Circuit — in this appreciation at Hoover salutes Judge Gorsuch’s impartiality and devotion to constitutional principle:
I asked my research assistant to pull every case in the last five years where Judge Gorsuch sat with both a Republican-appointed and a Democratic-appointed judge and the panel split as to the outcome. The results were striking. In almost a third of the cases, Judge Gorsuch voted with his presumably more liberal Democratic colleagues rather than the presumably more conservative Republicans. That is the mark of an independent, non-partisan jurist.
This is not just my opinion. In the days since the nomination, several liberal professors have studied his record and come to a similar conclusion.
3 Comments
You are ignoring that considering him accepts the illegal blocking of Obama’s selection. It is a stolen seat. The only acceptable nominee is Merrick Garland.
There was nothing illegal about the blocking of Garland’s nomination.
Liz, there’s a long and bipartisan history of blocking judicial nominations with a presidential election coming up. Chuck Schumer gave a speech in July 2007 to the ACS where he said that no Supreme Court nominations should be approved (at least those by GWB presumably) in the last eighteen months of a president’s term. The nomination of John Roberts for a Court of Appeals seat in January 1992 never received a hearing. Even back in 1956 when Supreme Court nominations were noncontroversial, LBJ refused to allow a vote on William Brennan’s nomination until after Ike was reelected. Spare us your outrage, Liz.