Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch said he would have “no difficulty” maintaining judicial independence and ruling against a president that appointed him to the U.S. Supreme Court.
During his second day testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Gorsuch was asked about judicial independence when Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) asked him, “I’d like to have you describe in any way you want to what judicial independence means, and specifically, tell us whether you’d have any trouble ruling against a president who appointed you.”
“That’s a softball, Mr. Chairman,” Gorsuch responded. “I have no difficulty ruling against or for any party, other than based on what the law and the facts of the particular case require. And I’m heartened by the support I have received from people who recognize that there’s no such thing as a Republican judge or a Democratic judge. We just have judges in this country.”
He continued:
When I think of what judicial independence means, I think of Byron White. That’s who I think of. I think of his fierce, rugged independence. He said, ‘I have a job.’ People asked him what his judicial philosophy was, I’ll give the same answer: I decide cases. It’s a pretty good philosophy for a judge. I listen to the arguments made, I read the briefs that are put to me, I listen to my colleagues carefully, and I listen to the lawyers in the well. And this experience has reminded me what it’s like to be a lawyer in the well. It’s a lot easier to ask the questions, I find, as a judge, than to have all the answers as the lawyer in the well.
So I take the judicial process very seriously and I go through it step by step and keeping an open mind through the entire process, as best I humanly can, and I leave all the other stuff at home. And I make a decision based on the facts of the lawyer. That’s some of the things judicial independence means to me. It means to me the judicial oath that I took to administer justice without respect for persons, to do equal right to the poor and the rich, and do discharge impartially the duties of my office. It’s a beautiful oath. It’s a statutory oath written by this body. That’s what judicial independence means to me.
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