At the same time Gorsuch endorses such judicial-supremacist views to usurp power from the elected branches to decide what are clearly political and not judicial questions under the venerable separation-of-powers rules, he and his plutocratic supporters paradoxically claim he is a "strict constructionist."
Like CJ John Roberts and the fraudulent umpire meme he concocted to deceive the public about his judicial-supremacist ideology, Judge Gorsuch wrote his own fake "strict constructionist" ritual vows for his nomination ceremony. At his first opportunity Gorsuch took the pledge in public that "it is for Congress and not the courts to write new laws. It is the role of judges to apply, not alter, the work of the people's representatives."
What could possibly go wrong with such a judge? Everything, if he is as pathological a liar as the President who nominated him. This now-ritualized demurral by all judicial-supremacist nominees does not fairly describe what Gorsuch has done when endorsing the supremacist concept that money is speech, or granting corporations religious rights in Hobby Lobby, or in deciding other cases restricting women's rights, or in ruling for corporate interests. Serving plutocracy and creating identity hierarchies by discriminatory rulings are inseparable strategies for a politicized right-wing operative like Gorsuch. If Gorsuch actually intended to follow his strict construction pledge he would have no value to the plutocrats who are placing him on the Court.
The paradoxical labeling of a judicial supremacist as its opposite, a "strict constructionist," has been going on a long time. George Bush II sang from this same dissonant hymnal for his second of two disastrous judicial-supremacist appointees. Bush claimed: "Sam Alito is a brilliant and fair-minded judge who strictly interprets the Constitution and laws and does not legislate from the bench." This is the same lie we heard about Roberts and heard from and about Gorsuch, who is cut from the same supremacist cloth as Alito.
The Democrats' Minority Leader, Sen. Charles Schumer, long ago figured out the stealth nomination fraud these supremacist judges practice. He promised at that time to prevent the Constitutional harm the Roberts faction would cause if "joined by just one more ideological ally. I will do everything in my power to prevent that from happening," he said. Now that Schumer has the power to enforce solidarity by the Senate Democrats against Gorsuch, a great deal of the nation's future turns on his keeping that promise. Any failure by Schumer to effectively enforce party loyalty cannot be excused by ignorance.
One problem in making their case against abolishing the filibuster is that the Democrats failed to mount an effective challenge to Gorsuch in the hearings. That would have made it more difficult for right-wing Democrats to bolt to the Republicans on cloture, which makes it easier for Republicans to abolish the filibuster on grounds that it has "bipartisan support" for Gorsuch anyway.
Safe-seat Democrats on the Judiciary Committee like Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) did not explore deeply enough with Gorsuch what he thinks a strict constructionist is and how the concept relates to judicial-supremacist decisions like Buckley and Citizens United. The American public at least had a right to learn about who this justice would serve. The voters should understand that the Democratic defectors are consenting to another judicial supremacist to rule over them, and perpetuate plutocracy.
Several such questions that should have been presented to Gorsuch would be:
Judge Gorsuch, you have been called a strict constructionist. What does strict construction mean to you? Are you consistently a strict constructionist, or only when the political results suit you?
Justice Byron "Whizzer" White described the Supreme Court's ruling in Buckley as enacting the "maxim that 'money talks,' that money is speech and that limiting the flow of money to the speaker violates the First Amendment." Is that ruling an example of strict construction of the Constitution?
Gorsuch clerked for Justice White and called him "one of the smartest and most courageous men I've ever known" who "brought me up in the law." If Gorsuch were to find that he agreed with the reasoning of his mentor, as expressed in White's persuasive dissent from Buckley, would Gorsuch feel free to vote, in a case that sought to rely on Buckley as precedent, to overrule that decision as wrongly decreeing that "money is speech"?
Does Gorsuch agree with White's strong criticism of the rationale of the majority in Buckley that regulation of campaign finance is unconstitutional merely because it reduces "communication made possible by" money? Is White not correct in arguing that this rationale is so absurd that it could also be used to overturn tax laws or nearly any law that can be argued to leave less money on the table that is supposed by a judge to otherwise be available for buying speech? That money might take the form of illegal proceeds from many kinds of crime, not just from the crime committed when campaigns receive money in violation of campaign-finance laws in such amounts that reasonably can be understood to create conflicts of interest.
Did anyone other than Robin Hood and Buckley plutocrats ever make such an argument that any crime can be excused by the use of its proceeds for some judicially approved conduct? Does Gorsuch disagree that no criminal law should be invalidated simply because the proceeds of the crime might be spent on something the Court endorses, like paid political propaganda, which was itself never even constitutionally protected until Buckley?
Democrats asked none of these questions.
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