Trump Expected To Name Scalia Replacement Next Week (Audio)

the tenth US Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. Both ABC and CBS say he is now the front runner for the nomination. The forty nine year old Gorstch comes with sparkling credentials, including degrees from Harvard Law School, graduating the same year as Barack Obama, and the University of Oxford. His appeals court nomination by George W. Bush sailed through the Senate in twenty six and over the past decade he has assembled a solid conservative record. What would Neil

Gorsuch mean for the Supreme Court? We have two guests to help us figure that out. Jane Knitze, clerk for Gorsch on the tense circuit in twenty nine. She's now a fellow and lecturer at Harvard Law School. And Eric Citron of the law firm Goldstein and Russell he looked into Gorstage's tense circuit record for the website's go to blog, Welcome to you both, Jane. Let me start with you, since you clerk for him, just answer a basic question,

what is Neil Gorstage like? Sure, well, that's an easy question. So, having clerked for him, and you know we stay in touch over the years, I can say, first and foremost, just taking off from our obvious points, he is an absolutely brilliant jurist. Uh. Eric made that point his blog post, and I think that everyone can agree that he's exceptionally qualified. Um. Also, you know, what we see, what I saw a front um when I clerked for him, is that he's an

incredibly good writer. He takes a great amount of care in crafting his judicial opinions, and so it was it was not unusual for us to go back and forth on draft, you know, ten twenty thirty four times, I think one draft in our resource sevent d drafts by the end, and he takes really a great deal of care and crafting, you know, his his opinions, and I think that he uh, he now is widely regarded as one of the most talented writers on the bench today.

And with with you know, with good reason, go ahead, go ahead, Jane, Oh, I'm sorry. Uh. I also would say that, you know, he's an incredibly fair, fair judge. What matters to him is not at all his personal policy preferences. Those were never discussed in chambers. Um. The only thing that mattered to him was what the law said, what the Constitution said, and that's how deside the case

and what the president was. Of course, So Eric, you wrote about him and you compared him in many respects to Justice Antonin Scalia tell us, Yeah, sure, I mean I think I can't take credit for the comparison. That's one that's uh, that's become pretty common. Uh, and I think he's even spoken about it himself. Um, but you know, Justice Scalia's judicial philosophy and Judge gorsuch As judicial philosophy, I think, uh, interact um very closely, or have a

lot of strong parallels. I think that that's clearest on issues of textualism, that is, you know, we should try to read both the Constitution and statutes to mean pretty much what they say in the plain English kind of way and not in graphed A lot of judge made

ideas onto either the laws or the constitution. Uh, and that results, I think in a pretty limited view of the judiciary, and it's appropriate ken and um, you know, I also think that Judge Gorsechu comes across as somebody who cares a lot about uh you know, what I would call an objective view of the law. I think he thinks, you know, there are right answers if you just think about it hard enough, pay attention to the arguments, pay attention to the precedents, you will know how the

case ought to come out. And um, you know that that ideally everybody ought to be able to agree about it. I'm not sure if that's a position that makes him moderate or not. You know, I think Justice Scalia believe that and managed to vote on the right side of the court with great consistency. But I do think it's somebody who he doesn't strike you as someone who, um doesn't take the side the arguments of the other side seriously or the like. He's like Jane said, he comes

across an exceedingly fair minded judge Jane. Of course, being an appeals court judge is different from being a Supreme Court justice. But given that, uh, is judge Gorst's somebody who tends to want to push the law in a particular direction, or is he somebody who is more inclined

to rule narrowly in a given case? Well, I think to the point you just raised in your question, one thing to remember is that the job or court judge is really to follow in particular source of Supreme Court precedent if it exists, And certainly in chambers, he always wanted to know what the Supreme Court has said, and he wanted to follow it. Um. That said, he wasn't afraid to criticize um precedent where warrn did Um And

quite the contrary. In the administry of law arena, he has been a sort of vocal critic of the Chevron deference doctrines. Um. But it's hard to say, I mean just speaking generally through a narrow or abroad I mean, he really just approaches the case. He looks at the constitution if that issue, he looks the law, and he decides the case corn to what the constitutional law dictates. Eric, he has not written about Roe v. Wade. I understand from his views on religion. Can we figure out what

he would think about Roe v. Wade? Is he like Schooly in that way? I mean, to be perfectly honest, I would have no comfort making predictions are talking about that um, not for political reasons, but because I literally

have no idea. UM. I will say that the limited um, you know, the sort of judicial minimalism attitudes that come across from his opinions and his attitudes about unwritten aspects of the Constitution, would suggest that he's not going to be a particularly strong vote for something like the right to privacy that underlies growing in Swade, because you can't

find it in the text of the Constitution. That said, you know, when people reach the court, they can have very different views about things the Court has already decided and how much respect they want to accord to their colleagues, on issues that have been percolating for those judges for several years and on which you haven't yet have the chance to think as a Supreme Court justice rather than a lower court judge. Uh. And so it's it's just very very hard to predict how once he gets there

he'll be thinking about questions like that one. It just isn't something he's touched on. I will say, also, you know, the religion cases that Judge of course has been involved in have a lot more to do with questions of pluralism than they do with questions than like expressing a pro religious view as such, or like voting as a

religious person or anything like that. I think Judge or definitely has a view, like Justice Scalias and other folks on the Court that we're just not tolerant enough of expressions of religiosity and public which are not really intended to make people of other religions feel like they don't

belong or anything like that. I don't think that necessarily translates to a view one way or another about things like row being We only have about a minute left, but but just tell me, is you look at Justice Scalia and what he represented, and you look at Judge Gorcich, where would you see the biggest areas, if any of

of significant differences between the former and the latter. So I think the similarities far away the differences, to be perfectly honest, on the substance, I think Eric and his blog post pointed out the one area where there is some difference, which is the administrative law area. Um. The Justice uh Scolia was a proponent of Chevron difference doctrine, which means differring to that just means deferring to the agency's interpretation of a statute right exactly exactly. Thank you, UM.

And Judge Gorcch has recently come out as quite a vocal critic of that of that doctrine. But in terms of overall judicial philosophy, originalism, textualism, in terms of their you know, really sparkling writing ability and style, UM, I think they really do share a lot more similarities than not. I want to thank our guests Jane Nitze, who clerked for Judge Gorcych and then later for Sonya so to Mayor on the Supreme Court. She's now at Harvard Law School.

And Eric Citron of the law firm Goldstein and Russell, he too clerked on the Supreme Court. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Neil Gorcich, who is reportedly the front rudder at least a front rudder for the vacant Supreme Court nomination. Vacant Supreme Court seat