3 Most Important Moments From Judge Gorsuch’s Opening Statement

Judge Neil Gorsuch’s opening statement during Monday’s confirmation hearings shed light on the way in which he would behave if appointed to the Supreme Court. If you don’t want to watch the entire 16-minute statement, here are his three most important remarks transcribed:

1. He Has an Optimistic View of the Court

“…these days we sometimes hear judges cynically described as politicians in robes; seeking to enforce their own politics rather than striving to apply the law impartially. If I thought that were true, I’d hang up the robe. The truth is I just don’t think that’s what a life in the law is about.

As a lawyer for many years working in the trial court trenches, I saw judges and juries — while human [and] imperfect — striving hard every day to fairly decide the cases I put to them.

As a judge now for more than a decade, I’ve watched my colleagues spend long days worrying over cases. Sometimes the answers we reach aren’t the ones we personally prefer. Sometimes the answers follow us home at night, and keep us up–but the answers we reach are always the ones we believe the law requires. And for all its imperfections, I believe that the rule of law in this nation truly is a wonder – and that it’s no wonder that it’s the envy of the world…

Of course, once in a while, we judges do disagree, but our disagreements are not about politics, but about the law’s demands. Let me offer an example. The first case I wrote as a judge to reach the Supreme Court divided 5 to 4. The Court affirmed my judgment with the support of Justices Thomas and Sotomayor, with Justices Stevens and Scalia in dissent. Now that’s a lineup some might think unusual, but actually it’s exactly the sort of thing that happens, quietly, day in and day out in the United States Supreme Court, and in the courts across this country. I wonder if people realize that Justices Thomas and Sotomayor agree about 60% of the time? Or that Justices Scalia and Breyer agreed even more often than that…”

2. He’s a Strict Textualist Who Disdains Judicial Overreach

“Justice Scalia was a mentor, too. He reminded us that words matter; that the judge’s job is to follow the words that are in the law — not replace them with those that aren’t…

…under our Constitution, it’s for this body, the people’s representatives, to make new laws; for the executive to ensure those laws are faithfully executed; and for neutral and independent judges to apply the law in the peoples’ disputes. If judges were just secret legislators, declaring not what the law is, but what they would like it to be, the very idea of a government by the people, and for the people would be at risk–and those who came before the court would live in fear, never sure exactly what the law requires of them, except for the judge’s will. As Alexander Hamilton said: ‘Liberty can have nothing to fear’ from judges who apply the law, but liberty ‘has every thing to fear’ if judges try to legislate, too…

…My decisions have never reflected a judgment about the people before me, only a judgment about the law and facts at issue in each particular case. A good judge can promise no more than that, and a good judge should guarantee no less. For a judge who likes every outcome he reaches is probably a pretty bad judge, stretching for policy results he prefers rather than those the law compels.”

3. He Knows Where the Court Stands

“…troublesome as the robe can be, the robe does mean something to me—and not just that I can hide the coffee stains on my shirt. Putting on a robe reminds us judges that it’s time to lose our egos and open our minds. It serves, too, as a reminder of the modest station we judges are meant to occupy in a democracy. In other countries, judges wear scarlet, silk, ermine. Here, we judges, we buy our own plain black robes…Ours is a judiciary of honest black polyester.”

The hearings will pick up again Tuesday morning.