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From the Fed to the Supreme Court?
Earlier tonight, Donald Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch, CC ’88, for the Supreme Court of the US. Gorsuch currently serves as a judge on the US State Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, nominated by George W. Bush. If his nomination is supported, he will take the seat vacated by Justice Antonin Scalia. While at Columbia, Gorsuch founded The Federalist and wrote columns for the Spectator.
Some of Gorsuch’s notable writing includes columns for Spec about South African divestment and the CU Marching Band. All of his columns can be accessed on Spec’s archives.
Gorsuch via Wikipedia Commons
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5 Comments
@Mark Excell I think the trouble with the supreme court is that it is for life. Would not be such an issue if it was a fixed term. For the post to be decided by the president means its political and not independent as it should be.
@Puzzled Alum He was selected by an illegitimate president. He should have declined. You either resist fully, or you’re with Trump. If you claim any school pride over this pick, you’re with Trump.
@MercilessTV He is a legitimate president, he was elected by 304 out of the 538 Electors. And you’re pathetic.
@Puzzled Alum She won the popular vote by 3 million.
The Electoral College was a tool to protect the slave states. Now it’s being used, once again, to promote blatantly racist policies. Whether or not the people who voted for Trump are racist is irrelevant. Whether or not the people who voted for Trump view themselves as racist is irrelevant. The people who voted for Trump voted, in part, for blatantly racist policies – policies that will have very real negative effects on various people of color: African Americans (court ruled unconstitutional stop and frisk laws); Latinos (ripping a part Latino families); Muslims (unconstitutional religious tests). These policies were accepted and approved by white voters – the only voting block that Trump carried.
Electoral College and Slavery:
“In a direct election system, the South would have lost every time because a huge percentage of its population was slaves, and slaves couldn’t vote. But an Electoral College allows states to count slaves, albeit at a discount (the three-fifths clause), and that’s what gave the South the inside track in presidential elections. And thus it’s no surprise that eight of the first nine presidential races were won by a Virginian. (Virginia was the most populous state at the time, and had a massive slave population that boosted its electoral vote count.)
This pro-slavery compromise was not clear to everyone when the Constitution was adopted, but it was clearly evident to everyone when the Electoral College was amended after the Jefferson-Adams contest of 1796 and 1800.”
Akhil Reed Amar
Yale Law Professor and one of the world’s expert on Constitutional Law.
@Alum Justices don’t work for the president and are not answerable to him. Besides, Gorsuch is too principled and independent to be a lapdog for Trump. If he had said no, we’d end up with someone worse.