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[1] (February 1, 2017)

handle is hein.crs/crsmthmarge0001 and id is 1 raw text is: CRS Reports & Analysis Legal Sidebar Neil Gorsuch's Nomination to the Supreme Court: Initial Observations 02/01/2017 On January 31, 2017, President Trump nominated Judge Neil Gorsuch of the federal Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (Tenth Circuit) to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016. As noted in an earlier d , this vacancy has significant implications for the Court, Congress, and the nation as a whole. Since Justice Scalia's death, an evenly divided Court had issued a number of summary affirmance, upholding, by a vote of four to four, lower court decisions on immigration law, fedeliam, rto f apeech, and other matters. (Summary affirmances are non-precedential and usually consist of a terse order that does not indicate the Court's voting alignment.) Moreover, even in cases where the Court did issue a ruling on the merits, its eight Members seemed closely divided on several issues where Justice Scalia had previously provided the t. Thus, Judge Gorsuch would likely have a significant influence on the development of American law if he were to be confirmed. This Sidebar provides some initial observations on Judge Gorsuch's nomination to the High Court. Future CRS products will discuss Judge Gorsuch's views on various areas of law in greater detail. Existing CRS poducla discuss Justice Scalia's jurisprudence and other aspects of the Court vacancy. Who is Judge Gorsuch? Nominated to the Tenth Circuit by President -eorge W Bush, Judge Gorsuch has served on that court, which spans six western states-Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming (along with those SegmentS of Yellowstone Taional Park spanning into Idaho and Montana) -since 2006. Unlike some circuit courts, whose dockets tend to feature a number of cases on specific issues due to either jurisdictional statutes or geography (e.g., the D.C. Circuit and administrative law; the Second Circuit and securities law), the Tenth Circuit has a relatively diverse caseload. As a result, Judge Gorsuch has aulb md hundreds of opinions exploring issues relevant to Congress's work, including thorny ciilrodre questions, complex anjitrula litigation, the interplay between fdera enir nmenal an Indian la-w, and a host of appeals in federal criminal law cases. Prior to his appointment to the federal bench, Judge Gorsuch jid as the Principal Deputy to the Assoi Atoey e in the Justice Department. Before that, he had spent a decade in priVatQ practice as an appellate litigator in Washington D.C. Originally from Denver, Colorado, Judge Gorsuch clerked for two Supreme Court Justices during the October 1993 term: newly retired Justice Byron White, a fellow Coloradoan, and Justice Anthony Kennedy, who could become Judge Gorsuch's future colleague on the Court. Prior to his Supreme Court clerkship, Judge Gorsuch served as a law clerk to Judge David B. Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. As President Trump nDI in his remarks on the nominee, Judge Gorsuch has well-respected academic credentials, with degrees from Columbia University (B.A.), Harvard Law School (J.D.), and the University of Oxford (D.Phil.). Judge Gorsuch pursued his doctoral studies, which focused on the legal and moral issues regarding assisted suicide and euthanasia, after receiving a Marshall Scholarship. He has since written about this subject in a kDk and in a number of schQlarly artidck. What Would Judge Gorsuch's Appointment to the Court Mean? Predicting how a nominee to the Supreme Court could affect the Court's jurisprudence is notably difficult. For example,

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