Democrats are waving their hands in the air and complaining over President Trump’s pick to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia with Judge Neil Gorsuch, a textualist conservative hoping to become Scalia’s intellectual heir on the court.
Leading the cavalry charge is Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the liberal firebrand who has vowed, with scorn, to block Trump’s major cabinet picks.
While Democrats have so far refrained from explicitly outlining their intentions to block Gorsuch’s nomination to the court, Schumer and his liberal colleagues have suggested they harbor serious reservations about the judge’s ability to hold the executive office accountable. In other words, progressive activists are angry that the court will once again move to the political right.
Speaking on behalf of Congressional Democrats, Schumer shared his “serious doubts” about Gorsuch in a statement released shortly after Trump’s nomination announcement
SCOTUS justice must stand up to a Pres willing to bend the Constitution. Serious doubts on Judge Gorsuch’s ability to meet this standard.
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) February 1, 2017
“Given his record, I have very serious doubts about Judge Gorsuch’s ability to meet this standard,” Schumer stated. “Judge Gorsuch has repeatedly sided with corporations over working people, demonstrated a hostility toward women’s rights, and most troubling, hewed to an ideological approach to jurisprudence that makes me skeptical that he can be a strong, independent Justice on the Court.”
However, Schumer and company haven’t always felt ill-will toward Gorsuch. In fact, the Senate minority and a handful of other top Democrats, including then-Senator Barack Obama, actually voted for Judge Gorsuch to join the 10th circuit about a decade ago.
“Back in 2006, when Gorsuch was nominated by then-President George W. Bush to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, he was confirmed unanimously by the U.S. Senate — which at the time included Sen. Schumer,” reports Media Research Center. “Also listed on the roll call of those who voted in his favor was Diane Feinstein of California, along with former senators Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and John Kerry.”
Yes, you read that correctly. A who’s who of Democratic party elite helped confirm Judge Gorsuch for a lower court under President Bush. The party’s elites were joined by Senators, Leahy, Schumer, Durbin, Murray, Wyden, Nelson, Carper, Reed, Menendez, Cantwell, Stabenow, and of course Schumer.
“Back in 2006, when Gorsuch was nominated by then-President George W. Bush to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, he was confirmed unanimously by the U.S. Senate — which at the time included Sen. Schumer.”
Media Research Center
So what’s changed? Well, for one, Democrats have lost the House, Senate, and White House. Moreover, the crowned queen of the party, Hillary Rodham Clinton, lost the presidential election to Donald Trump, a man who many Democrats dismissed as a non-threatening buffoon.
All of this together makes for a toxic brew of humiliation, resentment, bitterness, and existential angst.