Live blog of confirmation hearing | March 23, 2017
3rd & 7 37yd
3rd & 7 37yd
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Commission on Civil Rights has reviewed 200 some cases on civil rights handled by Gorsuch. Our examination shows his approach is consistent with generally accepted textual practices.
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Kirsanow: He was in minority of only 5% of cases, 43 cases he was in a 3-judge panel with two Democratic-appointed colleagues, and joined them in 94% of cases.
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Kirsanow now says Gorsuch applied the plain text in the TransAm case about the trucker
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Not to say who is right, but Kirsanow is giving a polar opposite take on civil rights than just given by Clarke.
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Kirsanow has moved on to the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act
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Kirsanow: Record shows he is a careful and exacting judge
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Sarah Warbelow from the Human Rights Campaign is now up/
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LGBTQ people are no strangers to the SCOTUS, Warbelow says
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Warbelow is now going into the plaintiffs in the Obergefell case that recognized marriage equality nationwide
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Warbelow: Gorsuch employs a dangerous brand of originalism
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Warbelow: He is squarely in the mold of Justice Scalia
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Warbelow: Gorsuch has directly questioned the court's recognition of the right to autonomy that is a cornerstone to protections for same-sex couples. He compares same-sex marriage to bestiality.
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Warbelow: He may have LGBTQ friends, but this line of reasoning shows a lack of concern for the community.
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Warbelow: Hobby Lobby did not directly involve LGBTQ community, but these religious based claims have been used in other cases
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Warbelow: Gorsuch's views on moral culpability callously disregards the harms caused to other people.
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Warbelow: We do not have to agree with every decision a justice makes, but we must believe they are fair and that they recognize the shared humanity of LGBTQ people. Gorsuch has never met this bar.
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Alice Fisher, former colleague of Gorsuch's, up next.
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Fisher: Struck by his brilliance but more by his character -- integrity, courtesy, kindness
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Fisher: He also counseled and mentored me as if he cared about my success as much as his own, and I am not alone in that experience
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Fisher: He comports himself with deep humility when he comes into public service
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Amy Miller, founder and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, now up. WWH was subject of major abortion case last year. www.scotusblog.com
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Miller: We are gravely concerned about the nomination.
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Miller: We envision a world in which every woman who has decided to end a pregnancy will be respected
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Miller: I know what happens when politicians find devious ways to deny women their constitutional rights
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Miller: Roe v. Wade has been settled law for more than four decades and reaffirmed repeatedly by Supreme Court
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Miller is now going into a Texas law that resulted in many clinics closing that led to the Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt case
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Miller says woman told her, I will tell you what's in my medicine cabinet, can you tell me how I can have my own abortion
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Miller: We need justices on bench who will not impose unreasonable obstacles
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Miller: Last year, court called out these laws as shams without any medical basis behind them
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Miller: Gorsuch's positions raise concerns about his ability to be fair and impartial
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Becket works to protect religious liberty. Smith says it does it best work for unpopular religious beliefs
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Smith: My assessment is that a Justice Gorsuch would be vital for protecting religious liberty, and the Supreme Court has never overturned his decisions on religious liberty -- and has even vindicated his dissents.
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Smith: When Gorsuch did author a religious liberty decision for the court, every single time it was unanimous
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Smith: Gorsuch has demonstrated repeatedly that he protects the religious liberty of minorities and the incarcerated. She now discusses Yellowbear v. Lambert, which involved a prisoner wishing to use a sweatlodge
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Smith: Sotomayor has quoted from Gorsuch's decision in another SCOTUS case.
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Smith: In his Religious Freedom Restoration Act, government tried to force ministries and family owned businesses to violate beliefs or pay huge fines. Some have tried to portray these are irresolvable conflicts between religious freedom and health care concerns. But the government has conceded that there are other ways to provide health care, so no real conflict must exist.
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His first point is that originalism has changed repeatedly in history.
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He says that the earliest courts did not see the Constitution as the bounded, limited document, as originalists say, and he goes to Chief Justice John Marshall: "It is a constitution we are expounding."
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The framers came from a common law tradition that understands that law adapts over time.