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Neil Gorsuch confirmation hearings: Day 2

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Gorsuch confirmation hearings, day 2: March 21, 2017


Today marked the second day of confirmation hearings on Judge Neil Gorsuch's nomination to be an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Today, Senate Judiciary Committee members began their questioning of the nominee. Each senator was allotted 30 minutes for questioning. A second day of questioning took place on March 22, 2017. Each senator would be given 20 minutes to question the nominee per the instructions of the committee chairman, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

HIGHLIGHTS
  • March 21, 2017, was the second day of confirmation hearings for Judge Neil Gorsuch's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.
  • Gorsuch was nominated by President Donald Trump (R) to succeed Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.
  • Chairman Chuck Grassley gavelled the hearings into session at 9:30 a.m. EST today. The hearings lasted for over eleven hours. Each committee member was given 30 minutes to question the nominee.


    • Read more about day one, day three, and day four of Gorsuch's confirmation hearings.

    Themes from senators' questions

    Every senator on the committee was given 30 minutes to question the nominee. Though a complete hearing transcript was not available from the Senate Judiciary Committee, below are some exchanges of note between the committee members and the judge from publicly available sources. A transcript will be provided on this page once it is available from the committee.[1][2]

    The first question

    Senator Grassley opened questioning of the nominee by asking the following question, "Describe what judicial independence means and whether you'd have any trouble ruling against the president who nominated you." Judge Gorsuch responded that the question was a softball and that he would have no difficulty ruling against any party based on what the law and the facts of the case required. Gorsuch also mentioned that there was no such thing a Democratic or Republican judge.

    The role of precedent

    Several senators throughout the day asked Judge Gorsuch about his views on specific precedents of the U.S. Supreme Court; in each instance, the judge declined to answer beyond his respect for the decisions as precedents of the U.S. Supreme Court. The judge, however, did give an assessment of the role that precedent plays in his judicial outlook. Senator Grassley noted that Judge Gorsuch was a co-author on a book about precedent and the senator gave some remarks on precedent. Gorsuch then gave an expanded answer to the chairman in response to the question, "What is the value of precedent in our legal system?" Judge Gorsuch responded,

    “

    For a judge, precedent is a very important thing. We don't go reinvent the wheel, everyday. And that's the equivalent point of the law of precedent. And we have an entire law about precedent, the law of judicial precedent. Precedent about precedent, if you will. And that's what that 800-page book's about. It expresses a mainstream, consensus view of 12 judges from around the country appointed by, as you point out, presidents of both parties, great minds. Justice Breyer was kind enough to write a forward to it. It makes an excellent doorstop. And in it, we talk about the factors that go into analyzing precedent, any consideration of precedent. There are a bunch of them. You've alluded to some of them.

    • The age of the precedent, very important factor.
    • The reliance interests that have built up around the precedent.
    • Has it been reaffirmed over the years?
    • What about the doctrine around it? Has it built up? Shored up? Or has it become an island, as you point out? ...
    • Its workability is a consideration too. Can people figure out how to abide it or is it just too confusing for the lowers courts and their administration?

    Those are all factors that a good judge will take into consideration when examining any precedent. You start with a heavy, heavy presumption in favor of precedent in our system. Alexander Hamilton said that's one important feature-I think it was Hamilton-said one important feature of judges: if we're gonna give them life tenure, allow them that extraordinary privilege, they should be bound down by strict rules and precedents. Francis Bacon called precedent the anchor of the law.

    So you start with that heavy presumption in favor of precedent. You consider those factors in that light. And, yes, in a very few cases, you may overrule precedent. It's not an inexorable command, the Supreme Court has said. That's the law of precedent as I understand it... [3]

    		”

    Advising the Bush administration

    Committee ranking member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) asked Judge Gorsuch about his work in the U.S. Department of Justice, specifically his role in advising the administration on various policies related to enhanced interrogation techniques, including the Detainee Treatment Act, as well as Gorsuch's recommendation to the president to issue a signing statement-which the senator said that the judge helped to prepare-related to interrogation policies, such as the use of waterboarding, as well as other detention policies for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Senator Feinstein referenced certain documents, including emails, attributed to Gorsuch. The senator and the judge agreed that, after the judge had a chance to review documents from Senator Feinstein, the senator would return to this line of questioning during her questioning time on Wednesday, March 22, 2017.

    Video of day two

    A video of the second day of Judge Gorsuch's nomination is below (via The New York Times feed on YouTube):

    See also

    External links

    Footnotes

    1. ↑ YouTube, "Live Stream: Judge Neil Gorsuch confirmation hearing for Supreme Court 3/21/17," March 21, 2017
    2. ↑ SCOTUSBlog, "Live blog of confirmation hearing," March 21, 2017
    3. ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
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