Opening Arguments OA40: Who is Neil Gorsuch, and How Scared Should You Be?
Feb 3, 2017
52:30
In today's episode, we take a look at President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch. The main segment was recorded before the announcement and reflects our guess (correctly!) that he would be the nominee, so you'll hear some speculative language. We begin, however, with a question from David Durman who wants to know if a citizen can bring a private civil suit against President Trump while he's in office. The answer may surprise you! During our main segment, we also discuss Gorsuch's originalism and some of the opinions and dissents he issued while serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. Oh, and he also wrote a snottly little editorial for the right-wing mag National Review. After our main segment, "Closed Arguments" returns with a question about Jared Kushner and the anti-nepotism law. Is Trump violating the law? The answer will probably not surprise you. Finally, we end with a brand new Thomas Takes the Bar Exam question #9 which is the single hardest question so far, in that it involves real property. Remember that TTTBE issues a new question every Friday, followed by the answer on next Tuesday's show. Don't forget to play along by following our Twitter feed (@Openargs) and/or our Facebook Page and quoting the Tweet or Facebook Post that announces this episode along with your guess and reason(s)! Show Notes & Links
- This is a link to the Washington Post article referenced by David.
- If you read only one thing from the show notes, it should be this sarcastic, nasty little article Gorsuch wrote for the National Review before he joined the bench.
- Then, if you have the stomach for it, check out Gorsuch's opinion in Gutierrez-Brizuela v. Lynch, 834 F.3d 1142 (10th Cir. 2016), in which he openly muses in the text of the opinion about repealing Chevron deference. Still think he's not an activist judge?
- This is the anti-nepotism law, 5 U.S.C. §3110.