God, guns, and abortion: Neil Gorsuch to quickly make his mark on high court

As the partisan argument rages over the confirmation to the supreme court on Friday of Donald Trump s nominee Neil Gorsuch the stakes of that argument are only now becoming clear. Democrats had dreamed of a progressive majority on the court and accuse Republicans of stealing the seat for the senate s 10-month-long refusal to consider the nomination of Merrick Garland Barack Obama s final court pick. The Democratic filibuster that followed a parliamentary tactic for putting off a distasteful vote was overcome by a Republican move to change Senate rules. The episode made for the court s most messily political moment since the 2000 presidential tiebreak. Now the real business begins. Justice Anthony Kennedy will swear in Gorsuch early next week the White House said Friday. Immediately thereafter on 13 April Gorsuch will sit for the first time with his colleagues and participate in decisions about what cases the court will hear next. The potential cases touch on some of the most hot-button questions in American life including who may carry a gun in the street; whether businesses may discriminate against same-sex couples on religious grounds; and whether Republican majorities may impose statewide voting restrictions that disproportionately disenfranchise poor and minority voters. Later this month Gorsuch will hear arguments in his first cases as a justice including one marquee case that experts say could reposition the line between church and state. Further out Trump s first nominee could weigh in on some of the most controversial and legally complex moves of the young administration including Trump s attempted bans on Syrian refugees and on visitors from select Muslim-majority countries. Both bans are subject to multiple court challenges now playing out in various districts across the country with the potential of rising to the high court. The likely result of Gorsuch s presence among the justices close observers widely agree will be to give the court a conservative tilt after a year in which an evenly divided court split 4-4 on touchstone issues including voting rights public labor unions and immigration. The split rulings had the effect of leaving in place lower-court decisions. When Trump set out to find a nominee to return the court to its full nine members the imperative as far as many Republicans saw it was to come as close as possible to replacing Justice Antonin Scalia the conservative lion whose death in February 2016 created the vacancy. A corollary need was to avoid an appointment like that of the retired justice David Souter who often voted with the court s liberal wing despite having been appointed by George HW Bush a Republican. Gorsuch an appeals court judge based in Colorado came with impeccable conservative credentials established by thousands of rulings a book on euthanasia in which he discoursed on life s intrinsic value and a personal admiration for Scalia whose death Gorsuch said moved him to tears. Gorsuch publicly praised the late judge s professed respect for the line separating jurisprudence and legislation and Gorsuch s unadorned direct writing style has been compared to Scalia s. A year ago we lost Justice Scalia a giant and today we are one step closer to seeing the preservation of his legacy on the Court Leonard Leo an executive of the conservative Federalist Society who counseled Trump on the Gorsuch pick said in a statement. Churches bakeries and voter IDs Gorsuch will soon have a chance to make his presence felt. Next Thursday the supreme court is scheduled to hear arguments in Trinity Lutheran church v Comer pitting a Missouri church against a state agency that excluded the church from a program providing recycled asphalt. The church argued that its playground which it wanted to resurface was open to the public in summer and thus should be eligible for state assistance. Missouri determined that as a religious institution the church was not eligible for state-funded improvements. Conservative groups have framed it as a religious freedom case a versatile phrase that has also been applied to demands by religious business owners that they not be required to provide services to people they object to or to provide federally mandated contraception coverage to their employees. Gorsuch has ruled on the second issue directly in perhaps his best-known case to date Hobby Lobby Stores Inc v Sebelius. In that case owners of the retail outlet sought dispensation from a requirement in Barack Obama s healthcare law that employers provide insurance coverage for oral contraceptives for employees. Gorsuch sided with the owners in a ruling that cited the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as a super-statute . Elsewhere Gorsuch has ruled sympathetically in cases involving the erection of Ten Commandments monuments in public spaces. Gorsuch is not eligible to vote on cases in which arguments were held before he was seated. But even before hearing arguments in the Trinity Lutheran case Gorsuch will have a chance to shape the court s agenda. Neil Gorsuch s sexist comments on maternity leave: the full story Read more Next Thursday the court will meet and potentially decide whether to hear arguments in Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd v Colorado civil rights commission in which a Christian baker refused to do business with a gay couple. A lower court ruling noted that the baker believes that decorating cakes is a form of art that he can honor God through his artistic talents and that he would displease God by creating cakes for same-sex marriages . Also awaiting a court decision on whether to hear arguments is Peruta v California which could produce a ruling on whether the second amendment guarantees a right to carry guns outside the home including in states where open carry is prohibited. The plaintiff in the original case was denied a permit to carry a gun with the state saying he had not demonstrated a good cause required by law to do so. The plaintiff asserted that constitutional guarantees superseded such a cause. With Gorsuch onboard the court might also decide whether to hear North Carolina v North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP in which an outgoing Republican governor challenged a federal court finding that a new state voter ID law had been written to target African Americans with almost surgical precision . Last year a split supreme court left the earlier ruling in place. While Gorsuch s views on major issues of public debate including abortion and guns are not known in as much detail Trump said on the campaign trail that he would pick a nominee who opposed abortion rights and proposed sympathy for gun owners as a litmus test for judges. Gorsuch appears to fit the bill on both counts. In his book on euthanasia Gorsuch wrote: To act intentionally against life is to suggest that its value rests only on its transient instrumental usefulness for other ends All human beings are intrinsically valuable and the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong. In a ruling that argued for a new hearing for a felon convicted of firearm possession Gorsuch articulated a philosophy of judicial restraint. Congress could have written the law differently than it did and it is always free to rewrite the law when it wishes he wrote. But in our legal order it is the role of the courts to apply the law as it is written not some different law Congress might have written in the past or might write in the future. That emphasis on restraint along with a sense of the difficulty in predicting how a judge might rule in a future case has led some analysts to muse that Gorsuch might diverge with Trump on questions such as the constitutionality of banning travelers from countries whose majority populations adhere to a religion that Trump as a candidate routinely impugned. Gorsuch was asked directly about the travel ban during his confirmation hearing but he declined comment true to form for recent supreme court nominees. Senator he has no idea how I d rule in that case Gorsuch told judiciary committee member Patrick Leahy. And Senator I m not going to say anything here that would give anybody any idea how I d rule in any case like that that could come before the supreme court. (Want to get this briefing by email? Here s the sign-up.)Good evening. Here s the latest. Photo Credit Drew Angerer/Getty Images 1. The American military strike against Syria threatened Russian-American relations.President Vladimir Putin said the airstrike on a Syrian air base in retaliation for this week s lethal chemical attack was a significant blow to the relationship. He suspended an agreement to coordinate air operations to avoid accidental conflict.U.S. officials faulted Russia for not enforcing a 2013 agreement to eliminate Syria s chemical weapons. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is to meet Mr. Putin in Moscow on Tuesday.The attack was the greatest risk so far of Donald Trump s young presidency. And at the United Nations the American ambassador Nikki Haley above warned that the country was prepared to take further action. She provided no legal rationale for the attack. Continue reading the main story Months before Donald Trump even secured the Republican nomination for president a third-year law student at the University of Colorado Law School met with campus administrators to express her concerns about alleged sexist comments her professor Neil Gorsuch made in class on 19 April 2016. At the time Gorsuch a judge on the 10th circuit court of appeals had no national profile outside legal circles. Nine months later when he was nominated to fill a vacancy on the supreme court the former student Jennifer Sisk formalized her complaint in a letter to the Senate judiciary committee the body overseeing his nomination hearings. If Gorsuch is confirmed the legitimacy of the US supreme court won t recover | Russ Feingold Read more The incident in question took place in an ethics class with Gorsuch when Sisk alleges he asked students to raise their hands if they knew women who had taken advantage of their employer s maternity benefits only to quit soon after they had their baby. When only a few hands went up she said Gorsuch insisted everyone s should be up because as she recalled him putting it many women do this . Sisk took her complaint first to friends then to the dean s office in late April and then finally to the Senate as Gorsuch s nomination hearings got under way. On Friday the upper chamber will hold its final confirmation vote. As Sisk s story has attracted national attention many former students have chimed in with everything from reflections on the class in question to broad generalizations about his character. A second letter submitted anonymously to the judiciary committee affirmed Sisk s impressions; two other letters authored by male students and sent soon after have sought to discredit them. From there the backlash as exhibited by a National Review roundup of dissenters picked up speed. Gorsuch himself denied Sisk s recollection during his confirmation hearings. http://buybacklinksz.tribunablog.com/top-5-myths-about-backlinks-2051311 Though little could directly contradict Sisk s account it almost immediately faded from national conversation. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Highlights from Neil Gorsuch s confirmation hearings The Guardian interviewed Sisk and four others who recall Sisk s real-time reactions to Gorsuch s class in April 2016 as well as her ultimate decision to report Gorsuch to school officials. Alaska-based lawyer Lauren Goschke 33 told the Guardian Sisk s reaction to the class with Gorsuch was unlike anything she d seen from her friend before. I d never heard her say anything like that about any of her other teachers Goschke said. Kate Mattern a deputy public defender in rural southern Colorado and close friend of Sisk s in law school heard about it in the hallway the next day. She said he said something like How many of you have heard about women taking jobs at law firms to take advantage of good benefits programs so they can then take maternity leave? Mattern recalled. I said That s a really messed up thing for the teacher to say. Justin Kutner Sisk http://buybacklinksz.mybjjblog.com/5-tools-that-help-me-check-backlinks-to-my-site-2473407 s then boyfriend and current fiance recalled speaking with Sisk about Gorsuch s class on the phone on Tuesday evening as he sat in his car in his apartment complex. She s the most even-tempered person I know and takes everything in stride said Kutner who met Sisk in 2012. So when she floated the idea of talking to school administrators about it Kutner was entirely supportive. According to Sisk s account of what happened in class that day Gorsuch not only shared his perception that women take advantage of their employers maternity benefits but he repeatedly brought class discussion back to just how often women take advantage of their companies emphasizing that it s very much a women s issue and a women s problem and that such abuses by certain women disadvantage any company unwise enough to employ them. In Sisk s telling of the incident Gorsuch said companies had a right to ask about applicants plans to get pregnant to protect financial interests. For employers to ask such family-planning questions of women is not technically a violation of federal law so long as hiring decisions are not based upon the answers. But the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has said such questions will be regarded as evidence of pregnancy discrimination when an employer later makes a decision that adversely affects a pregnant worker. Sisk said when she met with administrators they not only listened but told her they agreed with her that presenting a question that s been deemed discriminatory as an open one would be a misinterpretation of the law. But although administrators told Sisk they planned to approach Gorsuch on the matter as soon as grades for the semester were submitted they never ultimately did. At the end of June the law school had a transition of deans and regrettably preceding that change no member of the law school administration spoke to Judge Gorsuch about the student s concern Dean S James Anaya said in a statement. The school has apologized to Sisk and to Gorsuch for not bringing the matter to his attention. Sisk for her part was happy to forgive what she viewed as an honest bureaucratic mistake. When questioned directly during confirmation hearings whether companies should be able to inquire about the pregnancy plans of female applicants Gorsuch dodged the question posed by Senator Dick Durbin. Judge would you agree that if an employer were to ask female job applicants about their family plans but not male applicants that would be evidence of sex discrimination prohibited by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act? said Durbin. Senator I d agree with you it s highly inappropriate Gorsuch replied. You don t believe it s prohibited? pressed Durbin. Senator it sounds like a potential hypothetical case said Gorsuch. When Durbin raised Sisk s allegations Gorsuch simply said confidently that she misremembered his question. Senator I do ask for a show of hands he said but not about the question you asked but about the following question. And I ask it of everybody. How many of you have had questions like this asked of you in the employment environment an inappropriate question about your family planning? And I am shocked every year Senator how many young women raise their hand. It s disturbing to me. Since Sisk s claim was publicly posted by the National Women s Law Center and the National Employment Lawyers Association before confirmation hearings last month other students from the law school have stepped up to offer their accounts. A second anonymous letter submitted to the judiciary committee supported Sisk s account recalling the very discussion around companies hiring practices and maternity http://buybacklinksz.blogdigy.com/website-backlinks-what-you-need-to-know-for-seo-in-2015-2178864 benefits she mentioned as strongly gendered . But Sisk faced pushback in a flurry of coverage from conservative media that within 24 hours of Sisk going national with her story took issue with other media reports that didn t mention Sisk is a registered Democrat even though her affiliation had not been relevant to her complaint at the time. But the most relevant counterpoints came from two male students in Sisk s class who also submitted letters to the committee. Will Hauptman another student in Sisk s class released a statement publicized by Gorsuch supporters calling her description not truthful . While he acknowledged Gorsuch did discuss some of the topics mentioned in Sisk s letter he did not do so in the manner described . He cited as evidence Gorsuch s general air of cordiality and respectful manner of appearance adding that had anything like what she described happened it would have upset him so much I would remember. A second letter by Baker Arena said: I do not recall Gorsuch accusing women of taking advantage of paid maternity leave policies much less espousing such accusations as his personal beliefs. He also suggested that perhaps Sisk failed to appreciate Gorsuch s style of pedagogy and how he would play devil s advocate in his lectures . An office colleague of Sisk s who previously took a class with Gorsuch wasn t having it. I m a law student. I know what the Socratic method is said the lawyer who declined to give her name because she is not authorized to speak publicly by her employer. There was a definite tone of sexism that I also just thought was part of his general attitude. In conversation with that lawyer after class at the office where Sisk interned that year Sisk recalled her own thinking boiling down to this: How do I be really good at my career but also when the time comes be a good mother? It was frustrating Sisk told the Guardian because I was thinking is this something I m going to be facing with an employer who thinks we all have to balance this? Or will I be facing this with an employer who thinks this is a woman s problem? If she hadn t heard Gorsuch endorse the latter view in class Sisk never would have believed it was a current one. I thought it was something that would happen to women in the 60s and 70s but I didn t think it would happen now. Breaking News This piece originally http://buybacklinksz.pages10.com/Best-Backlinking-Tips-To-Rank-Better-On-Search-Engines-6016500 appeared on BillMoyers.com.In Neil Gorsuch the corporate class have their perfect manservant for the Supreme Court.He looks the part: tall handsome greying (at 50) charming and erudite every inch a gentleman.His pedigree glistens: He went to the right schools knew the right people made the right moves got the right coaching. He has an acute and knowing sense of theatrics; at his televised confirmation hearings he appeared to know exactly when to turn to his wife seated behind him and pronounce his love as the cameras moved closer for their embrace.This talent for carefully managed public intimacy may be little more than following the script and remembering your cues and it may have spun many a discreet traditionalist justice in their graves but his handlers must have winked at one another as they watched now certain they had the right face and figure to mask the harsh inequity of the rulings the conservative majority on the Supreme Court will soon be handing down if Gorsuch is approved in the furtherance of corporate power and plutocratic privilege.Gorsuch could not have come this far without the plutocrats. Like the late Antonin Scalia he has a taste for their company; he s a regular guest of right-wing plutocrat Philip F. Anschutz at his Eagles Nest Ranch in Colorado where Anschutz invites the wealthy and politically prominent to mix and mingle at dove-hunting retreats. That little tidbit comes from a recent report by Charlie Savage and Julie Turkewitz in The New York Times headlined: Neil Gorsuch Has Web of Ties to Secretive Billionaire. As a lawyer for one of those Washington firms richly rewarded for helping to make the rich richer Gorsuch ably served the interests of Anschutz (estimated worth: 12.6 billion from heritance oil and gas telecommunications railroads real estate resorts sports teams stadiums and movies) so much so that Anschutz who shovels money at Republican and conservative causes decided his man should be a federal judge. He lobbied the Bush White House listened and Anschutz got his wish: a seat on the federal bench for Neil Gorsuch.Let s stay on the money trail a little further. You may remember that when candidate Donald Trump released a list of potential Supreme Court nominees he would consider if he won the presidency Gorsuch was on it. The list was compiled by two influential organizations from the most extreme wing of the conservative alliance the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation. Both have received funding from Gorsuch s patron Anschutz.If you have been watching cable news you likely have seen a slick ad promoting Gorsuch s nomination to the court. The sponsor is an outfit called the Judicial Crisis Network (JCN). Although his record prompts some court watchers to place Gorsuch to the right of Justice Samuel Alito Jr. and even in one ranking to the right of Clarence Thomas really way out there the ad makes Gorsuch sound as if he s a moderate liberal; an effort no doubt to persuade some waffling Democrats to cross over and vote for his nomination.And what exactly is the Judicial Crisis Network the group behind the campaign to sell Gorsuch? According to an investigative report by Viveca Novak and Peter Stone it s a secretive right-wing judicial machine with lots of money to spend; dark money that is from hard-to-trace sources.Launched with the help of a former law clerk to Justice Thomas and a one-time Bush campaign operative JCN proved crucial in drumming up support for Bush Supreme Court nominees Alito and John Roberts Jr. Last year it spent a reported 2 million on ads to block Barack Obama s nominee to the Supreme Court Merrick Garland who didn t even get a confirmation hearing. Now it s spending even more to support Gorsuch s confirmation. When senators pressed Gorsuch to reveal the undisclosed donors as a matter of respect for the process so we can evaluate who is behind this effort Gorsuch pirouetted away from an answer. There s more. Novak and Stone wrote that to expand its influence in state elections JCN has emerged as a pipeline for secret money to other better-known dark money groups including the Republican Attorneys General Association and the Republican State Leadership Committee. In 2012 it dished out more than 2 million in court races in Michigan alone half of that in a single down-ticket state circuit contest. In 2008 it funneled 200 000 to a Wisconsin group that produced the negative attack ads that helped a conservative eke out a victory over a sitting state Supreme Court justice tipping control of the bench to the right. With another ally it even spent 1 million trying to kick off the bench a Michigan county circuit court judge.The Judicial Crisis Network is a linchpin in a nationwide effort by conservative and business groups spending millions of dollars to get Republicans elected as state attorneys general who would then bring cases that challenge the federal government s power to protect citizens consumers and the environment. Such a friendlier legal climate would especially be hospitable to curbing tort liability for corporations making it even harder for citizens to hold big business accountable.This is the dark money juggernaut now in overdrive to put Philip Anschutz s man on the Supreme Court just a portion of the deep-pocketed crowd behind Neil Gorsuch. These donors and activists have had his back. He is part and parcel of their world view. They now eagerly anticipate the big payoff. So Democrats have legitimate reasons to try to stop his confirmation this week. Their gambit a filibuster is risky. non-e of its consequences are likely to be happy. But they should not be cowed by an inability to read the future. Sooner or later in politics you have to take a stand even a costly stand to discover if you really are who you think you are. You can t go on being bought off pushed around made a fool of and outmaneuvered by unprincipled adversaries like Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell who one year ago backed by the likes of the Judicial Crisis Network and a host of secret donors crudely and completely blocked Merrick Garland s nomination to the Supreme Court.One politically conservative lawyer a former clerk to Justice Scalia praised Garland as someone with high intellect a very decent fellow. And then he added: The only criticism I d make of him is that he s liberal. At least the man was honest; Mitch McConnell not so much. Begging Democrats to give Judge Gorsuch due deference he said: I hope colleagues on both sides will show him the fair consideration he deserves the same fair consideration we showed to all four of the Supreme Court nominees of Presidents Obama and Clinton after they were first elected a respectful hearing followed by an up-or-down vote. Really! McConnell the hypocrite simply had Merrick Garland disappeared to be replaced now by Neil Gorsuch the protégé of a plutocrat.Democrats have no choice. Sometimes in politics if your opponent keeps swinging at you with brass knuckles for the sake of honor not to mention the sake of democracy you have to reply with sharp elbows. Bill Moyers is managing editor of the new weekly public affairs program Moyers & Company airing on public television. Check local airtimes BillMoyers.com. More Bill Moyers. (Want to get this briefing by email? Here s the sign-up.)Good evening. Here s the latest. Photo Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times 1. The U.S. hit a Syrian air base with dozens of missiles in retaliation for Tuesday s chemical attack. Check back for updates.It was Mr. Trump s first direct order to the military for the use of force. It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons he said.Our Beirut bureau chief Anne Barnard who has covered the Syrian war for years analyzed the grim logic behind the chemical attack which Turkish authorities said used the banned nerve agent sarin.Images of one young father s grief after losing his wife 9-month-old twins and other family members show the unimaginable toll. Advertisement Continue reading the main story _____ Photo Credit Eric Thayer/Reuters 2. It had already been a tumultuous day in Washington.Republicans changed longstanding rules to bypass the Democrats blockade of President Trump s Supreme Court nominee. Judge Neil Gorsuch is now expected to be confirmed on Friday with a simple majority vote instead of a 60-vote minimum. Continue reading the main story