A look at Neil Gorsuch, Thomas Hardiman and William Pryor, the federal appeals court judges who are seen as the leading candidates to be President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court. Each was appointed to the appellate bench by President George W. Bush, appeared on Trump’s list of 21 possible choices that he made public during the campaign and has met with Trump to discuss the vacancy that arose when Justice Antonin Scalia died nearly a year ago. Trump plans to announce the nominee on Thursday.
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This photo provided by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals shows Judge Neil Gorsuch. Conservatives who care about the court say they have no such worry this time around. They feel confident that whomever President Donald Trump nominates for the Supreme Court, they won’t be looking back with regret in the years to come. (10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals via AP)GORSUCH
Gorsuch, 49, serves on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, where he has made a name for himself as a facile writer. Gorsuch is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, and served as a law clerk to Justices Anthony Kennedy and fellow Coloradan Byron White. If chosen, he would be the first justice to serve with a colleague for whom he once worked.
With a clear, colloquial writing style, Gorsuch has written in favor of courts’ second-guessing government regulations, in defense of religious freedom and skeptically about law enforcement. He has contended that courts give too much deference to government agencies’ interpretations of statutes. He sided with two groups that mounted religious objections to the Obama administration’s requirements that employers provide health insurance that includes contraception for women.