Neil Gorsuch: Supreme Court nominee in his own words

When he agreed to deliver a major lecture at Case Western University School of Law early last year, Neil Gorsuch felt the time was ripe to urge reform of "the maddening maze of our civil justice system — its exuberant procedures that price so many out of court and force those in it to wade wearily through years and fortunes to win a judgment."

But then Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died unexpectedly — Gorsuch, who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Denver, learned of it while contemplating the next field of moguls on a downhill ski run — and he switched topics.

Here are a few choice excerpts from “Of Lions and Bears, Judges and Legislators, and the Legacy of Justice Scalia" that shed light on Gorsuch's (and Scalia's) judicial philosophy:

"Judges should... strive (if humanly and so imperfectly) to apply the law as it is, focusing backward, not forward, and looking to text, structure, and history to decide what a reasonable reader at the time of the events in question would have understood the law to be — not to decide cases based on their own moral convictions or the policy consequences they believe might serve society best."

"Judges should be in the business of declaring what the law is using the traditional tools of interpretation, rather than pronouncing the law as they might wish it to be in light of their own political views."

"Throughout my decade on the bench, I have watched my colleagues strive day in and day out to do just as Socrates said we should — to hear courteously, answer wisely, consider soberly, and decide impartially."

Judges should "regularly issue judgments with which they disagree as a matter of policy — all because they think that’s what the law fairly demands."

"Though the critics are loud and the temptations to join them may be many, mark me down too as a believer that the traditional account of the judicial role Justice Scalia defended will endure." 

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