Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, answering his first question of the day, said at his confirmation hearing Tuesday that he wouldn’t have any trouble ruling against the President who nominated him.
While there was no mention of President Donald Trump in the question — which came from the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley — nor in Gorsuch’s answer, it comes as Trump has made headlines twice in the past year for criticizing federal judges whose decisions he didn’t like.
Tuesday marks Gorsuch’s second day of confirmation hearings, but it’s the first chance for senators to publicly ask Gorsuch questions and Democrats are expected to grill the Supreme Court nominee.
The hearing will likely last more than 10 hours.
Grassley argued that “no one — not even the President — is above the law,” cand asked Gorsuch if it would be problematic for him to decide against the President.
“That’s a softball, Mr. Chairman,” Gorsuch responded. “I have no difficulty ruling against or for any party other than based on what the law and the facts in the particular case require.”
Gorsuch has previously called those comments “disheartening” and “demoralizing,” and on Tuesday
He also said that he was never asked to make promises to rule certain ways on certain decisions by the Trump administration when he was going through the selection process.
“There’s no such thing as a Republican judge or a Democratic judge. We just have judges,” Gorsuch said in his first answer to the panel.
Gorsuch was also pressed on his view of previous cases. As is tradition with Supreme Court nominees, Gorsuch declined to give direct answers, saying it would be “inappropriate” to suggest how he would rule on already established precedents.
“I would be tipping my hand and suggesting to litigants that I have already made up my mind,” he said.
Asked specifically about Roe v. Wade by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the committee, Gorsuch would not state his personal views on the topic or say whether he thought it was a “super-precedent,” like she asked.
“It has been reaffirmed many times, I can say that,” he said.
Democrats on the attack
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, said on CNN’s “New Day” that he’s looking to see if Gorsuch will prove that he won’t always side with the right-leaning justices and “that he will actually stand as an independent judge.”
Several senators signaled Monday their upcoming line of questioning by bringing up specific decisions or comments by Gorsuch that they didn’t like.
But Gorsuch has argued the doctrine gives agencies too much power to say what the law is, which is really the job of the courts.
Feinstein brought up a case in which a trucker was fired for abandoning his broken-down trailer in freezing temperatures to seek safety.
The trucker, Alphonse Maddin, filed a complaint asserting that his firing violated a federal safety law. In a 2-1 decision the 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Maddin’s favor.
Gorsuch dissented. “A trucker was stranded on the side of the road, late at night, in cold weather, and his trailer brakes were stuck,” Gorsuch wrote and noted that the company “fired him for disobeying orders and abandoning its trailer and goods.”
“It might be fair to ask whether TransAm’s decision was a wise or kind one,” he wrote. “But it’s not our job to answer questions like that. Our only task is to decide whether the decision was an illegal one.”
Gorsuch concluded it wasn’t. His dissenting opinion is something Democrats are likely to harp on to paint Gorsuch in a negative, less humane light.
Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal also suggested that Gorsuch might have to go farther than other Supreme Court nominees have in explaining his position on Roe v. Wade — the landmark opinion that legalized abortion, in part because Trump announced that he was going to appoint “Pro-life judges.”
“If you fail to be explicit and forthcoming and definite in your responses, we have to assume that you will pass the Trump litmus test,” Blumenthal warned.
Leonard Leo, an attorney currently on leave from the conservative Federalist Society, who helped Trump pick the nominee, called Blumenthal’s potential question “far-reaching and dangerous.”
“The President never sought promises from the judge on future cases, and Judge Gorsuch never made any,” Leo added. “Judge Gorsuch can’t make these promises on how he might rule.”