Donald Trump’s young presidency scored a win this week as the Republican-led US Senate voted Friday to confirm Neil Gorsuch's Supreme Court nomination, ending a dramatic 13-month partisan fight.
He will replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February 2016.
Conservative Gorsuch crossed the finish line in a 54-45 vote, a day after Trump’s Republicans controversially changed filibuster rules to allow a simple majority of 51 votes for a confirmation. The previous threshold for Supreme Court nominees was 60 votes.
Gorsuch, 49, is the youngest person in 25 years to be nominated to the lifetime position. He will take the seat previously occupied by Scalia, another conservative, preserving the ideological makeup of the Supreme Court. A 5-4 conservative majority has shaped the nine-seat judicial body since 1991.
US Supreme Court Justices /AFP Photo
Gorsuch was compared to Scalia because of his ability to write incisive rulings and his defense of a strict reading of the Constitution. Republicans trumpeted his sterling reputation for his support of regulations on gun rights and reproductive health.
Democrats accused him of favoring corporate interests over ordinary Americans. Critics also flagged what they said was the judge's failure to prove his independence from Trump.
“As a deep believer in the rule of law, Judge Gorsuch will serve the American people with distinction as he continues to faithfully and vigorously defend our Constitution,” Trump said in a statement.
Gorsuch’s appointment is seen as the Republican response to the opposition’s success in blocking healthcare reform in the House of Representatives last week. Conservative control of the court is expected to help Trump pursue his new priority, tax reform.
US Supreme Court nominee judge Neil Gorsuch is sworn in to testify at his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, March 20, 2017. /CFP Photo
Gorsuch holds degrees from Columbia, Harvard and Oxford. He served as a law clerk for the late Justice Byron White and Justice Anthony Kennedy in the 1990s. He was appointed to the 10th Circuit US Court of Appeals in Denver, Colorado by former President George W. Bush in 2006.
He will join fellow conservatives Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy on a court that also includes liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
Gorsuch will be sworn in on Monday in two different ceremonies, a private one at 9:00 a.m. (1300 GMT) in the court and a public one at 11:00 a.m. (1500 GMT) in the White House.
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