Judge Neil Gorsuch: A Worthy Heir to Justice Scalia

From NRO: "A Worthy Successor to Antonin Scalia".

Gorsuch is an originalist, as represented by this paragraph:

Judges should instead strive (if humanly and so imperfectly) to apply the law as it is, focusing backward, not forward, and looking to text, structure, and history to decide what a reasonable reader at the time of the events in question would have understood the law to be — not to decide cases based on their own moral convictions or the policy consequences they believe might serve society best. As Justice Scalia put it, “if you’re going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you’re not always going to like the conclusions you reach. If you like them all the time, you’re probably doing something wrong.”

Reactions:

Eric Citron (SCOTUSblog): "He is an ardent textualist (like Scalia); he believes criminal laws should be clear and interpreted in favor of defendants even if that hurts government prosecutions (like Scalia); he is skeptical of efforts to purge religious expression from public spaces (like Scalia); he is highly dubious of legislative history (like Scalia); and he is less than enamored of the dormant commerce clause (like Scalia). In fact, some of the parallels can be downright eerie."

Erick Erickson: "Judge Gorsuch is the one nominee who matches Antonin Scalia’s intellectual pedigree and will unite all the factions within the Republican Party. This is a very wise move by President Trump. Even his most ardent critics on the right will have to commend President Trump for this nomination... It is rock solid."

New York Times: "At 49, Judge Gorsuch is the youngest nominee to the Supreme Court in 25 years, underscoring his potential to shape major decisions for decades to come. In choosing him, Mr. Trump reached for a reliably conservative figure in the Scalia tradition but not someone known to be divisive... Judge Gorsuch’s personal connections to Justice Kennedy are no accident. By choosing a familiar figure, several officials said, the White House is sending a reassuring signal to Justice Kennedy, 80, who has been mulling retirement."

It turns out that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Harry Reid, Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, and 11 other sitting Democrat Senators all supported Gorsuch in 2006.

Hat tip: BadBlue Real-Time News.