With the Republicans showing some spine and elevating Judge Neil McGill Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, there is reason to celebrate. Antonin Scalia’s seat has been filled by someone who may be able to do it justice, if you’ll allow the pun. Really, only time will tell, since we’ve been burned before.
Conservatives have a long tradition of being sorely disappointed in our Republican Presidents’ selection: Richard Nixon selected Lewis Powell and Harry Blackmun; Reagan nominated Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O’Connor; George H.W. Bush picked David Souter. Most recently, however, George W. Bush picked John Roberts.
When the Supreme Court voted 6-3 in King v. Burwell to uphold the subsidies undergirding Obamacare, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, making it the second time he preserved Barack Obama’s nation-debilitating health program. In fact, when Justice Scalia wrote the dissent, he accused the other justices of rewriting the law to make sure it was upheld. “We should be calling this SCOTUScare,” he wrote.
In other words, we should not be too jubilant over the Gorsuch. The best-case scenario is that we’ve held our ground after losing a great originalist on the Court. Hopefully, we’ve replaced him with another meaning we haven’t gained ground but have defended a position. Remember, this “new” court has the same ideological balance as the court that gave us Obamacare and Obergefell.
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