President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, on Saturday submitted a completed 68-page questionnaire to the Senate Judiciary Committee which offers a lengthy personal and professional history for senators to review in advance of confirmation hearings.
The questionnaire is available for public perusal online, and it includes a description of the process by which Gorsuch was nominated, from his first contact with the Trump team in early December through the official announcement of his nomination at the end of January. For those seeking insight into how Gorsuch would function at SCOTUS, however, his account of the "10 most significant cases" over which he presided as a judge is perhaps the most useful information.
"Top of his list is a 2016 case in which he wrote for a panel of judges who sided with a Mexican citizen seeking permission to live in the U.S.," notes The Associated Press. The case considered a conflict between judicial and executive branch interpretations of two competing legal provisions, and Gorsuch writes that his opinion "questioned judicial deference to agency legal interpretations," which can raise "due process (fair notice) and separation of powers concerns."
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Gorsuch later describes writing a dissent in a Fourth Amendment case to argue police do not have implied consent to enter someone's home without a warrant if "no trespassing" signs are posted. Among other topics, he also lists cases concerning firearms charges, securities fraud, the religious rights of a Native American inmate, and the Hobby Lobby case about employer-provided contraception that would eventually go to the Supreme Court.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says he expects Gorsuch's hearings to occur in March.
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