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2555d ago / 7:15 PM UTC

Gorsuch Grilled About 'Dark Money' Spent on SCOTUS Fights

While Gorsuch didn't have an answer to why an outside group that spent millions of dollars in efforts to advocate against President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland was now spending millions advocating for his confirmation, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse made his point about "dark money" clear.  Watch the exchange: 

2553d ago / 11:17 PM UTC

What You Missed On Day Three of Gorsuch's Hearing

Catching up on the third day of Gorsuch's confirmation hearing? Here's what you missed:

Gorsuch’s potential future colleagues gave him a headache, by overturning one of his rulings from the 10th Circuit during his hearing to join that very court, and a misspoken word lead to a lot of laughs. We took a look at how many “no” votes SCOTUS nominees have gotten in the last 42 years, and while watching this four-day grueling job interview, we scoped out Justice salaries, too.  

Gorsuch also asked to make a few remarks towards the end of the hearing. Watch it here.

2554d ago / 5:38 PM UTC

While He Appears Before Senate, SCOTUS Overturns Nominee's Ruling

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All eight sitting Supreme Court Justices ruled against a Gorsuch decision in a decision handed down during the third day of the federal judge's confirmation hearing on Wednesday.

The Court overruled Gorsuch's court on a decision he penned, that a public school didn’t have to pay for an autistic child’s private school tuition that had improved his education more than the public school option.

In the unanimous opining, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that “when all is said and done, a student offered an educational program providing “merely more than de minimis” progress from year to year can hardly be said to have been offered an education at all. For children with disabilities, receiving instruction that aims so low would be tantamount to “sitting idly . . . awaiting the time when they were old enough to ‘drop out.’”

Pressed on it during his hearing by Sen. Dick Durbin, Gorsuch said he was bound by circuit court precedent in the ruling. While it is true a judge should pay deference to previous court decisions under the legal doctrine of stare decisis, a judge is not bound to follow previous decisions of his court under all circumstances. Faced with a new case and a new set of facts, a judge may choose to depart from precedent.

Gorsuch pushed back when pressed again on it Wednesday afternoon: on this case, he said he was joined by Democrat-appointed judges and he argued the Supreme Court took the case in order to settle it for good, as circuit courts have disagreed on it for years.

2554d ago / 2:07 PM UTC

So, How Much Money Do Supreme Court Justices Make, Anyway?

Neil Gorsuch is entering his third day of a public job interview, hoping to secure one of the most elite and sought-after titles in American history.

But here’s a question: how much does the job of Supreme Court justice actually pay?

As of this year, an associate justice of the high court pulls down a respectable $251,800. (The Chief Justice gets an extra bump, making an annual $262,300).

That sounds like a nice check, but it’s also dramatically less than a top lawyer in the lucrative market of Washington D.C. could expect to make in private practice. A survey back in 2012 found that the average compensation for a partner at a Washington D.C. law firm was nearly $800,000.

But you shouldn’t exactly start sending care packages to members of the bench, either.

The Center for Public Integrity analyzed the financial disclosures of the sitting justices last year and found that at least six had a net worth of at least $1 million.

The wealthiest one on the list: Stephen Breyer, who is worth at least $6.1 million and as much as $16 million, thanks in part to a chunk of publishing company stock and properties in New Hampshire and the Caribbean.

Most of the justices also reported earning tens of thousands of dollars from speaking and teaching gigs as well as book deals. They’re also well-traveled: all also took at least one major trip sponsored by another organization.

While a seat on the court might win the justices a good living and a storied place in history, though, it doesn’t exactly make its members famous — by popular standards, anyway.

In fact, a new C-SPAN poll found that 57 percent of U.S. voters can’t name a single sitting Supreme Court justice.  

2554d ago / 11:52 PM UTC

Gorsuch Hearing: The Standout Moments From Tuesday's Grilling

  • Trump attacks on the judiciary. Gorsuch gave his first ever public rebuke of Trump’s attacks on the judiciary, saying that he finds anyone criticizing "the honesty, integrity, the motives of a federal judge...disheartening" and "demoralizing"
  • Maternity leave. Gorsuch sought to “clear up” allegations raised by a former student on his views on women manipulating maternity leave
  • Pro-business rulings. The judge was pressed again and again about his dissent on a ruling in favor of a trucker fired for abandoning part of an unsafe vehicle in subzero temperatures when he was without heat. 
  • Abortion rights and dark money. He weighed in, albeit carefully, on Roe v. Wade, while Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse grilled him about dark money in politics.

Bonus:

2555d ago / 8:15 PM UTC

Ted Cruz and Neil Gorsuch: Former SCOTUS Clerks, Current Rodeo Fans

In the midst of a hearing where Gorsuch was grilled by Democrats over his position on abortion and past pro-business rulings, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz used his 30 minutes to have a more personal and congenial chat with the nominee. In addition to discussing what it means to be a Constitutional originalist, the two discussed their time clerking for the Supreme Court as well as their shared love of the rodeo.

Here are a few of the lighter questions Cruz asked Gorsuch.

"What is the answer, to the ultimate question, of life, the universe and everything?" (Answer: "42," quoting the exchange from Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.")

"What was it like to be a law clerk for Byron White?" (Former SCOTUS Justice White is Gorsuch's much-talked-about hero, and Gorsuch took the opportunity Cruz offered to reminisce.)

"Were you lucky enough to get him on the basketball court?" (Answer: They played Horse, as White was in his 70s at this point.)

"How's his jump shot?" (Answer: "His eye-hand coordination was just uncanny!")

"I understand you take law clerks, some not from the west, to the Denver rodeo..can you shared your experiences?" (Here, Gorsuch described mutton busting to the Committee: "You take a poor little kid, you find a sheep, and you attach the one to the other and see how long they can hold on.")

2555d ago / 7:29 PM UTC

Cameras in the Court?

Pressed by Sen. Amy Klobuchar on whether he supports TV coverage of Supreme Court proceedings, Neil Gorsuch first joked that he's pretty new to the whole topic. 

"I’ve experienced more cameras in the last few weeks than I’ve experienced in my lifetime," he said. 

Pressed a bit more by the Minnesota Democrat, he declined to give a definite answer, saying "I would treat it like I would any other case or controversy. I would want to hear the arguments."

According to a new poll from C-SPAN, 76% of Americans support TV coverage of oral arguments in the Supreme Court. 

2555d ago / 6:45 PM UTC

Gorsuch Laments Partisanship in Hearings — And Not for the First Time

During his confirmation hearing, Neil Gorsuch lamented partisanship in the Supreme Court confirmation process. It's not a new argument for the Colorado judge, who decried a tilt toward ideological voting on nominees in an op-ed shortly after the death in 2002 of his oft-cited mentor Byron White, whose confirmation hearing in 1962 lasted just 90 minutes.

Here's what Gorusch wrote then: 

Today, there are too many who are concerned less with promoting the best public servants and more with enforcing litmus tests and locating unknown "stealth candidates" who are perceived as likely to advance favored political causes once on the bench.Politicians and pressure groups on both sides declare that they will not support nominees unless they hew to their own partisan creeds. When a favored candidate is voted down for lack of sufficient political sympathy to those in control, grudges are held for years, and retaliation is guaranteed.

In the same piece in 2002, Gorsuch expressed dismay that "some of the most impressive judicial nominees are grossly mistreated." 

One of those "mistreated" nominees? None other than Merrick Garland, who at the time waited for a year and a half for confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals. 

Meanwhile, some of the most impressive judicial nominees are grossly mistreated. Take Merrick Garland and John Roberts, two appointees to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. Both were Supreme Court clerks. Both served with distinction at the Department of Justice. Both are widely considered to be among the finest lawyers of their generation. Garland, a Clinton appointee, was actively promoted by Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. Roberts, a Bush nominee, has the backing of Seth Waxman, President Bill Clinton's solicitor general. But neither Garland nor Roberts has chosen to live his life as a shirker; both have litigated controversial cases involving "hot-button" issues.As a result, Garland was left waiting for 18 months before being confirmed over the opposition of 23 senators. 

On Tuesday, it's worth noting, Gorsuch said he respects Garland but said "I cannot get involved in politics" regarding the Obama Supreme Court pick's blockage by Republicans in the Senate. 

2555d ago / 5:57 PM UTC

Confronted by Freezing Trucker Case, Gorsuch Pushes Back: I'm Not A Legislator

Confronted again with the case of Alphonse Maddin — the TransAm Trucking driver who was fired for leaving a trailer with frozen breaks, against his employers wishes, because he said he was losing feeling in his limbs in the subzero temperatures — Gorsuch insisted that he believed it was the right legal decision to side with the employer in the matter.  

“This is one of those you take home at night. The law said, the man is protected and can’t be fired if he refuses to operate an unsafe vehicle. The facts of the case, at least as I understood them, was that Mr. Maddin chose to operate his vehicle, to drive away, and therefore wasn’t protected by the law,” Gorsuch said halfway through a ten-hour marathon questioning session. 

Gorsuch’s dissent on the case — after his colleagues insisted the law protected him — has come up repeatedly during his confirmation hearing, with Democrats criticizing him for siding with employers over “the little guy,” as one senator put it on Tuesday.

“My job is to apply the law that you write. The law as written said he would be protected if he refused to operate. By any plain understanding, he operated the vehicle,” Gorsuch continued. “I said it was an unkind decision, I said it might have been a wrong decision, a bad decision, but my job isn’t to write the law, senator, it’s to apply the law. If congress passes a law saying the trucker in those circumstances gets to choose how to operate his vehicle, I’ll be the first in line to enforce it. “

2555d ago / 4:14 PM UTC

Polarization and More SCOTUS Party-Line Votes

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, the final questioner of the morning session, made a point to decry increasing partisanship in the Supreme Court confirmation process.

Since 1975, six Supreme Court nominations have been unanimously approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, most recently Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s in 1993.

But more recent nominations have seen more dissent.

Both Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan received six negative votes out of the committee (Graham crossed party lines to approve both Obama-nominated picks.)

A few years before, George W. Bush pick Samuel Alito faced a party-line vote from the panel, with eight members — all Democrats — giving him a thumbs down.

That's not counting the two nominations since 1975 that did not win a favorable report out of committee: Robert Bork (whose nomination ultimately failed) and Clarence Thomas (who was confirmed by the full Senate after receiving no recommendation from the committee.)  

2555d ago / 3:07 PM UTC

The Ivy Supremes

If Neil Gorsuch is confirmed, it'll be a 6-3 split on the Supreme Court. 

Between Harvard and Yale, that is. 

Gorsuch, a Harvard Law graduate, would join four other justices who graduated from the prestigious school. 

One other justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, also attended Harvard but transferred and ultimately graduated from Columbia Law School. 

The other three justices attended Yale Law School. 

2555d ago / 2:32 PM UTC

How Gorsuch's Age Compares to His Predecessors

At 49 years old, Neil Gorsuch would be relatively young for a new Supreme Court justice. 

The Pew Research Center notes that the average age of former justices when they took the oath of office was 53, and 74 of 104 former justices were 50 or older when joining the high court. 

But Gorsuch is still older than his judicial idol, Byron White, who was just 44 at the time of his appointment. 

The youngest new justice ever was Joseph Story, who was just 32 years old when he joined the court in 1812.