Hatch Lauds Senate Confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch
Washington, D.C.—Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the senior member and former Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued the following statement following the confirmation of Judge Neil M. Gorsuch as a Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
“In my time in the Senate, I have had the distinct honor of playing a key role in the confirmation of fourteen Supreme Court nominees. In all that time, I have never seen a better nominee than Judge Neil Gorsuch. Not only does he possess unquestionably impressive credentials, but he has also demonstrated a deep and abiding understanding of the proper role of a judge under the Constitution. While I am disappointed that partisan politics interfered with the Senate’s consideration of a nominee who deserved the support of all 100 senators, I am extraordinarily pleased that Judge Gorsuch will now take a seat on the highest court in the land. He is a worthy successor to the great Justice Scalia, and he will do the nation proud.”
(ICYMI: Hatch Lauds Gorsuch Confirmation, Describes ‘Neil Gorsuch’s America’)
Senator Hatch has delivered several speeches on Judge Gorsuch’s Nomination:
Senator Hatch has made the case for Judge Gorsuch in a number of op-eds:
Before the nomination of Judge Gorsuch, Senator Hatch described the ideal Supreme Court Nominee in two op-eds:
Sen. Orrin Hatch: Democrats Have Only Themselves to Blame for Rules Change
Sen. Orrin G. Hatch
http://time.com/4730017/hatch-filibuster-nuclear-option/
I’m not happy Senate Republicans had to eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. I’m an institutionalist. I love the Senate and what it represents. I value debate and honor bipartisanship.
But let me be clear: We are here because of what Democrats have done over the last thirty years to poison the confirmation process. I speak from experience, as I’ve been here through all of it.
I was here when Democrats started the confirmation wars with their treatment of Robert Bork. Just one year earlier, Senator Ted Kennedy had attempted to filibuster Justice William Rehnquist’s elevation to Chief Justice, but those efforts were thwarted by a bipartisan cloture vote and a subsequent 65-33 confirmation vote. But in 1987, Senate Democrats twisted Judge Bork’s words, misrepresented his record and did their best to turn a good and decent man into some sort of monster.
Next came Clarence Thomas. Democrats learned from their Bork experience that fabrications and misrepresentations can bring down even the most qualified nominee. So they set to work on Thomas. Not satisfied with denigrating his professional qualifications, they set about to destroy him personally. To his great credit, Thomas endured and was confirmed by a slim 52-48 margin.
When Bill Clinton became President, Senate Republicans did not retaliate. Instead, we gave Judges Ginsburg and Breyer fair hearings and confirmed them overwhelmingly. Indeed, as Ranking Member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, I helped shepherd through both of President Clinton’s nominees.
And how did Senate Democrats respond to our fair treatment of President Clinton’s nominees? They filibustered President George W. Bush’s. For the first time in history, Senate Democrats successfully filibustered ten court of appeals nominees. These were nominees who would have been confirmed had they gotten an up-or-down vote. What Senate Democrats did during George W. Bush’s presidency changed the Senate — forever.
Next up was Samuel Alito. Like Rehnquist, Alito faced a partisan filibuster by Senate Democrats. And like Rehnquist, he overcame that filibuster. (The only other filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee in our nation’s history was that of Abe Fortas, who faced a bipartisan filibuster due to his questionable ethics background when he was nominated to ascend from Associate Justice to Chief Justice.) Alito received fewer than 60 votes for confirmation, but he overcame the filibuster because 19 Senate Democrats voted to end debate on his nomination, even though only four ultimately voted for confirmation.
What happened when Barack Obama became president? Once again, after Senate Democrats had escalated the confirmation wars, Senate Republicans chose not to reciprocate. To be sure, many Republicans voted against Judges Sotomayor and Kagan, but no Republican attempted to filibuster their nominations.
And how did Democrats respond to our restraint? They eliminated the filibuster for lower-court nominees. The irony of this particular move is rich. It was the Democrats who, ten years earlier, for the first time in Senate history, began filibustering court of appeals judges in an effort to stop Bush’s nominees. When Senate Republicans did not roll over for Obama’s lower-court nominees, Democrats simply changed the rules back to what they were in practice ten years prior.
Democrats, that is, raised the effectual confirmation threshold to 60 votes by instigating filibusters to block Republican nominees, and then lowered it back down to 50 votes to push through Democratic nominees. And they did so after only seven failed cloture votes. Republicans, by contrast, endured twenty failed cloture votes during President Bush’s term, and never changed the rules.
That brings us to Judge Gorsuch. Having borked Bork, smeared Thomas, instigated the filibuster for lower court nominees when it was in their interest, filibustered Alito and then eliminated the filibuster for lower-court nominees when it was in their interest, Senate Democrats boldly argued this week that Republicans should throw up our hands and allow them to block Gorsuch — an unquestionably qualified nominee with broad support from across the legal community.
History leaves no doubt that, if the shoe were on the other foot, Senate Democrats would never have allowed a partisan filibuster of a Democratic president’s Supreme Court nominee. I have participated in this process for 40 years, during every combination of partisan control in both the Senate and White House. I have seen the confirmation process degrade from cooperation to, now, all-out partisan conflict.
That is not a direction that is good for the country or for the institutions of the Senate and the judiciary. I am relieved that we stopped Senate Democrats from continuing to poison the confirmation process and that Judge Gorsuch will get an up-or-down vote. It is unfortunate that the Senate rules had to be changed to ensure that. But that was the choice my Democratic colleagues made by attempting the first successful partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee in American history.
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JOINT RELEASE – Hatch and Stewart Introduce Southern Utah OPEN OHV Areas Act
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Congressman Chris Stewart, R-Utah, issued the following statements after introducing the Southern Utah Open OHV Areas Act:
“Over the last 30 years, areas for recreational access in Washington County have been quickly disappearing. It’s time we draw a line in the sand by keeping the Hurricane Sand Dunes open for riding and under county management,” Hatch said. “Our legislation, the Southern Utah Open OHV Areas Act (S. 837), would guarantee nearly 20,000 acres of recreational access for off-road vehicles. Perhaps most importantly, this proposal empowers locals by entrusting county leaders—not federal bureaucrats—to manage this unique area. It reflects a truly collaborative effort following extensive discussions between all of the affected stakeholders. I strongly urge my Senate colleagues to join us in passing this legislation.”
“This bill is an excellent example of a collaborative process to resolve longstanding land use problems,” Stewart said. “It gives certainty, and entrusts local leaders to manage the Hurricane Sand Dunes. I’m proud to introduce this legislation with Senator Hatch and encourage my colleagues in the House to support this bill.”
Background
This legislation:
Hatch on the History of the “Confirmation Wars”
I will vote to change the rules if necessary to put Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court. I won’t be happy about it, but I will do it because Judge Gorsu ch deserves confirmation and because I refuse to reward Democrats for thirty years of bad faith in blocking, stalling, and smearing Republican nominees.
Washington, D.C.—Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the senior member and former Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, spoke on the Senate floor tonight about the upcoming vote on the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s nominee to the United States Supreme Court.
After 30 years of Democrat obstruction of the confirmation process and countless demonstrations of bad faith in blocking, stalling, and smearing Republican nominees throughout the confirmation process, Hatch pledged to vote to change the rules if necessary to put Judge Gorsuch on the Supreme Court.
Hatch’s Brief History of How Democrats Destroyed the Confirmation Process
Every single escalation of the confirmation wars, Mr. President, can be laid at the feet of Democrats. That is the simple truth, and nothing my colleagues on the other side of the aisle can say can change it.
I speak from experience, Mr. President. I’ve been here through all of it.
Having borked Judge Bork, smeared Justice Thomas, instigated the filibuster for lower court nominees when it was in their interest, filibustered Justice Alito, and then eliminated the filibuster for lower court nominees when it was in their interest, Senate Democrats now expect Republicans to throw up our hands and allow them to block Judge Gorsuch—an unquestionably qualified nominee with broad support from across the legal community.
Enough, Mr. President. We have let our Democratic colleagues get away with their games for too long. They were for the filibuster before they were against it before they were for it.
They were the ones who created an effectual 60-vote threshold for judicial nominees. They were the ones who then undid that threshold to suit their short-term political interests. They are the ones who now, for the first time in history, are seeking to block a Supreme Court nominee with clear majority support.
Mr. President, to put the matter bluntly, my Republican colleagues and I are fed up with the Democrats’ antics. We will no longer be bound by their games and petty partisanship. We will no longer allow them to dictate the terms of debate in ways that always advantage their side and always disadvantage ours.
I regret deeply the point we’ve arrived at, Mr. President. I’m an institutionalist. I love the Senate and what it represents. I value debate and honor bipartisanship.
But 30 years ago my Democratic colleagues set us down this path, and they have done nothing in the years since to turn us from this course. To the contrary, they have only hastened our descent.
The Full Speech, as prepared for delivery, is below:
Mr. President, in early January of this year, the Democratic Leader issued a warning to then-President-elect Donald Trump regarding the President-elect’s anticipated selection of a Supreme Court nominee. Even before President Trump took the oath of office, the Democratic Leader was already threatening the soon-to-be President to either pick a “mainstream and independent” nominee, or the Democrats would oppose the President-elect’s choice “with everything we have.”
Well, Mr. President, President Trump did exactly what the Democratic Leader asked when he nominated Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Not only is Judge Gorsuch a mainstream and independent judge, he is easily one of the finest and most qualified nominees to the High Court that I have seen in all my forty years in the United States Senate.
His selection was also the result of the most transparent Supreme Court nomination process in American history. President Trump and Hillary Clinton both made the Supreme Court a centerpiece of their campaigns and spoke at length about the type of judge they would appoint to replace Justice Scalia. Candidate Trump even made the novel pledge to nominate someone from a list of judges his campaign released to the public. This gave the American people the opportunity to vet the list and to discuss more generally the proper role of judges in our system of governance. When the American people elected Donald Trump to be our next President, they ratified his list of candidates. And when President Trump subsequently selected Neil Gorsuch from that list to be his nominee, he kept his promise to the American people.
Judge Gorsuch’s judicial record on the Tenth Circuit paints a clear picture of the Judge’s judicial temperament and philosophy. Of the more than 2,700 cases Judge Gorsuch has participated in on the Tenth Circuit, 97 percent of them were decided unanimously. Judge Gorsuch voted with the majority 99 percent of the time. And in those 1 percent of cases in which Judge Gorsuch dissented, he did so with almost the same frequency, whether the majority opinion was written by a judge nominated by a Republican or a Democratic president.
Additionally, Judge Gorsuch has gained bipartisan support, including from President Obama’s former Solicitor General, Neal Katyal, who said that Judge Gorsuch is committed to the rule of law and the judiciary’s independence. Judge Gorsuch was described by six former Solicitors General, appointed under four different Presidents, as “highly respected and admired by his colleagues appointed by Presidents of both parties and law clerks of all political stripes.” And the American Bar Association gave Judge Gorsuch its highest rating of Well-Qualified to be an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court.
Now I think we can all agree that this is a far cry from the profile of an extreme or activist judge, and I want to know how anyone can, while keeping a straight face, honestly make the case that Judge Gorsuch is anything but mainstream. In reality, quite the opposite is true. Judge Gorsuch is exactly the kind of judge we need on the Supreme Court. He is an impartial, thoughtful man with tremendous judicial experience. He has been educated at some of the best schools in the world and has excelled at every stage of his career. He has served with character, courage, and integrity for more than a decade on the federal bench.
It would be hard to even imagine a better, more suitable choice for the Supreme Court than Judge Gorsuch. And after seeing the Judge sit through several grueling days of confirmation hearings, and nearly twenty hours of questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee, my confidence in Judge Gorsuch has only been solidified. Despite the Democrats’ best efforts before and during the hearings to distort his record, he demonstrated time and again that his judicial philosophy is to impartially interpret and apply the law and the Constitution wherever it may take him.
Now, Mr. President, we are about to witness something unprecedented in the history of our nation: a partisan minority is going to block a vote on a Supreme Court nominee. In all of the Senate’s 228-year history, that has never happened.
Three Supreme Court nominees have faced filibusters in our nation’s history. The first, Abe Fortas, faced a bipartisan filibuster by Senators of both parties concerned about Fortas’s questionable ethics background. The second and third, William Rehnquist and Samuel Alito, endured partisan filibusters by Democrats who disagreed with the nominee’s judicial philosophy.
The filibuster against Fortas succeeded, in part because Fortas lacked clear majority support, and in part because he was ethically compromised. The filibusters against Rehnquist and Alito, by contrast, failed. Rehnquist and Alito both enjoyed clear majority support, and both were confirmed.
Mr. President, I regret to say that we are likely to add a fourth individual to that list of filibustered Supreme Court nominees: Neil Gorsuch. Like Justices Rehnquist and Alito, Judge Gorsuch enjoys clear majority support. Like Justices Rehnquist and Alito, Judge Gorsuch faces opposition from Senate Democrats who don’t like his judicial philosophy. In particular, they object that Judge Gorsuch takes the law as he finds it, rather than trying to bend the law toward liberal social ends.
Unlike Justices Rehnquist and Alito, however, Judge Gorsuch is apparently not going to clear the 60-vote threshold for cloture. This is because Senate Democrats—with only a few exceptions— have concluded that no nominee who does not subscribe to their views on hot-button social issues should be allowed to serve on the Supreme Court.
Never in the history of this body, Mr. President, has the Senate allowed a partisan minority to defeat a Supreme Court nomination for which there is clear majority support. The only successful filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee in our nation’s history was bipartisan and involved an ethically compromised nominee who resigned from the bench shortly after his nomination failed rather than face impeachment for serious conflict of interest violations.
Those circumstances are not even remotely comparable to the situation we face today. The filibuster of Judge Gorsuch, should it go forward, will be entirely partisan. It will have nothing to do with Judge Gorsuch’s ethics or character, which are above reproach. And it will occur in the face of clear majority support for the nominee.
Senate Democrats’ decision to block Judge Gorsuch should come as no surprise to anyone who’s been following the confirmation wars for more than the last five seconds. My Democratic colleagues will no doubt shout to the hilltops that Republicans are ruining the Senate if we decide to put a stop to their unprecedented obstruction of this nominee. They will no doubt cry that the 60-vote threshold for cloture on Supreme Court nominees is sacrosanct and that by putting an end to Democrats’ unprecedented obstruction, Republicans are somehow undermining this institution’s ideals.
Mr. President, when the American people hear these claims, when they hear Senate Democrats argue that Republicans should respond to their unprecedented obstruction by allowing a nomination with clear majority support to fail, they should recognize these arguments for what they are—hypocrisy.
The fact of the matter is we’re only in this situation—forced to choose between rewarding Democratic obstructionism and changing the Senate’s rules—because of Democrats and the campaign they’ve waged against qualified judicial nominees for the past 30 years.
Everysingle escalation of the confirmation wars, Mr. President, can be laid at the feet of Democrats. That is the simple truth, and nothing my colleagues on the other side of the aisle can say can change it.
I speak from experience, Mr. President. I’ve been here through all of it.
I was here in 1987 when Democrats started the confirmation wars with their disgraceful treatment of Robert Bork. I remember vividly the day the late Senator from Massachusetts came to this floor and smeared Judge Bork as a man who would somehow turn back the clock to darker days in our nation’s past. Senate Democrats twisted Judge Bork’s words, misrepresented his record, and in sum did their best to turn a good and decent man into some sort of monster. In their scorched-earth campaign against Robert Bork, Senate Democrats sowed seeds of destruction that are coming now to full fruition.
Next came Clarence Thomas. My Democratic colleagues learned from their Bork experience that fabrications and misrepresentations can bring down even the most qualified nominee, and so they set to work on Judge Thomas. Not satisfied merely with denigrating Judge Thomas’s professional qualifications, they set about to destroy him personally as well.
I’ve been in the Senate 40 years, Mr. President, and never in all my time have I seen a lower moment than the way Senate Democrats treated Clarence Thomas. No baseless allegation, no lurid lie, was too low for my Democratic colleagues’ attention. To his great credit, Judge Thomas endured this slander with dignity and respect and was confirmed by a slim 52-48 margin.
Thankfully, Mr. President, after the Thomas ordeal, we stepped back from the brink.
When Bill Clinton became President and had two Supreme Court vacancies early in his term, Senate Republicans did not play tit-for-tat. Instead, we gave Justices Ginsburg and Breyer fair hearings and confirmed them overwhelmingly.
And how did Senate Democrats pay us back for our fair treatment of President Clinton’s nominees? They filibustered President George W. Bush’s nominees.
I’ve used the word unprecedented, Mr. President, to describe Democrats’ expected filibuster of Judge Gorsuch. Well, what Democrats did to President Bush’s judicial nominees was also unprecedented. For the first time in history, Senate Democrats successfully filibustered ten court of appeals nominees. These were nominees, Mr. President, with majority support. These were nominees that would have been confirmed had they gotten an up-or-down vote.
I cannot overstate how dramatic a change this was to Senate norms and procedures. For the first time in history, Senate Democrats created an effectual 60-vote threshold for judicial nominees. Remember that Clarence Thomas was confirmed with only 52 votes. Had Senate Democrats filibustered his nomination, it would have been defeated. But they didn’t, because partisan filibusters of nominees with majority support were simply not in the accepted playbook.
What Senate Democrats did during George W. Bush’s presidency, Mr. President, changed the Senate—forever.
Next up was Sam Alito. Like Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice Alito faced a partisan filibuster by Senate Democrats. Like Chief Justice Rehnquist, he overcame that filibuster. But what’s notable about Justice Alito is that he received fewer than 60 votes for confirmation. He overcame the filibuster because 19 Senate Democrats voted to end debate on his nomination, even though only four ultimately voted for confirmation. Fifteen Senate Democrats, that is, chose not to filibuster Justice Alito even though they opposed his nomination, because they recognized that filibustering a Supreme Court nominee with clear majority support had no precedent in this body’s norms or history.
So what happened when Barack Obama became President and Republicans had an opportunity for payback? Did they filibuster Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan? Of course not. Indeed, many Republicans voted against Justice Sotomayor, and against Justice Kagan, but no Republican tried to prevent their nominations from coming to a vote.
Once again, Senate Democrats escalated the confirmation wars, and Senate Republicans chose not to reciprocate.
And how did Democrats pay us back for our restraint on Justices Sotomayor and Kagan? They nuked the filibuster for lower court nominees.
The irony of this move was really something. It was the Democrats who, ten years earlier, for the first time in Senate history, began the practice of filibustering court of appeals judges in an effort to stop President Bush’s nominees. When Senate Republicans then had the gall not to roll over for President Obama once the shoe was on the other foot, Democrats simply changed the rules back to what they were in practice ten years prior. Democrats, that is, raised the effectual confirmation threshold to 60 votes by instigating filibusters to block Republican nominees, and then lowered it back down to 50 votes to push through Democratic nominees. And they did so after only seven failed cloture votes. Republicans, by contrast, endured twenty failed cloture votes during President Bush’s term, and never changed the rules.
That brings us to today. Having borked Judge Bork, smeared Justice Thomas, instigated the filibuster for lower court nominees when it was in their interest, filibustered Justice Alito, and then eliminated the filibuster for lower court nominees when it was in their interest, Senate Democrats now expect Republicans to throw up our hands and allow them to block Judge Gorsuch—an unquestionably qualified nominee with broad support from across the legal community.
Enough, Mr. President. We have let our Democratic colleagues get away with their games for too long. They were for the filibuster before they were against it before they were for it.
They were the ones who created an effectual 60-vote threshold for judicial nominees. They were the ones who then undid that threshold to suit their short-term political interests. They are the ones who now, for the first time in history, are seeking to block a Supreme Court nominee with clear majority support.
Mr. President, to put the matter bluntly, my Republican colleagues and I are fed up with the Democrats’ antics. We will no longer be bound by their games and petty partisanship. We will no longer allow them to dictate the terms of debate in ways that always advantage their side and always disadvantage ours.
I regret deeply the point we’ve arrived at, Mr. President. I’m an institutionalist. I love the Senate and what it represents. I value debate and honor bipartisanship.
But 30 years ago my Democratic colleagues set us down this path, and they have done nothing in the years since to turn us from this course. To the contrary, they have only hastened our descent.
If Democrats will filibuster Judge Gorsuch, they will filibuster anyone—anyone—who holds to the judicial values Republicans embrace. Neil Gorsuch is as good as they come. If he’s not good enough for Democrats, no one will be.
Democrats demand that Republicans choose a nominee they would choose if they held the White House, when that has never been the standard for Supreme Court nominees and defies all logic and common sense. They demand the power to veto President Trump’s choice even though the Supreme Court was in all likelihood the issue that won him the election. And they demand that Republicans keep the rules sacrosanct, when they have changed the rules, and changed the rules, and changed the rules.
I’m not happy that we are where we are, Mr. President, but I can say, without reservation, that we’re here because of what Democrats have done over the last thirty years to poison the confirmation process.
I will vote to change the rules if necessary to put Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court. I won’t be happy about it, but I will do it because Judge Gorsuch deserves confirmation and because I refuse to reward Democrats for thirty years of bad faith in blocking, stalling, and smearing Republican nominees.
Enough, Mr. President. Enough.
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Media Advisory: Hatch to Speak on Next Steps for Bears Ears
Washington, D.C.—Senator Orrin Hatch, the senior Republican in the United States Senate, will speak on the Senate floor today about what’s next for Bears Ears. In the last few months, Senator Hatch has raised the issue with both Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and President Trump himself. Today, Hatch will reference those meetings on the Senate floor and will emphasize the importance of working with the new administration to fix the damage done by the Bears Ears and the Grand Staircase monument designations.
Below is a preview from Senator Hatch’s speech:
Within days of his nomination, I indicated to Secretary Zinke that undoing the harm caused by the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase monument designations was among my top priorities. In a private meeting in my office, I even told Secretary Zinke that my support for his nomination would depend largely on his commitment to this cause. After gaining assurances from Secretary Zinke that he would work with us in this effort, I was eager to support his confirmation.
Just two weeks later, I found myself in the Oval Office, where I engaged President Trump for over an hour in a wide-ranging discussion that focused specifically on the public lands issue. I have to say, I was amazed at the President’s willingness to help. He listened intently as I relayed the fears and frustrations of thousands in our state who have been personally hurt by the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase monument designations. I explained the urgency of addressing these devastating measures, and I asked for his help in doing so.
I was encouraged that—unlike his predecessor—President Trump actually took the time to listen and understand the heavy toll of such overreaching actions. Our President even assured me that he stands ready to work with us to fix this disaster. More than any of his predecessors, President Trump understands what’s at stake here. Indeed, in all my years of public service, I have never seen a President so committed to reining in the federal government and so eager to fix the damage done by these overbearing monument designations. We are fortunate now to have the White House on our side in the fight for local control.
Watch the speech live on C-SPAN.
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