Gorsuch’s past exposes truth behind 'nice-guy act'

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch poses for a picture in his chambers at the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., September 13, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Neil Gorsuch has carved out a niche for himself on the Supreme Court as one of the more reasonable conservatives on the Supreme Court. While some of these softer stances might have him in hot water with MAGA die-hards, an extensive new breakdown from Slate shows how the past exposes his "nice-guy act."

Writing for the outlet on Wednesday, Susan Matthews explained how Gorsuch convinced even her experienced, anti-Trump colleagues during his 2017 confirmation hearings that he was a "thoughtful jurist," and not a "rank partisan" despite being staunchly conservative. In the years that followed, however, he has emerged as "one of the most consistently conservative justices on a very conservative court," and signed on to numerous destructive rulings.

"A decade later, this is a guy who has gutted the Voting Rights Act, ended affirmative action, and dismantled the constitutional right to reproductive care," Matthews detailed. "He has written opinions that embrace outright falsehoods in the interest of letting a high school football coach force prayer in a public school. He has cleared the way for people to legally put up signs saying they will not serve gay people."

"How does Gorsuch manage to do all of this without provoking the ire that some of his fellow right-wing justices receive?" she added. "I think it’s mostly because no one knows who he is. He’s arguably the most anonymous member of the bench."

Polling suggests that only around 6 percent of Americans even know who Gorsuch is by name.

Speaking with past colleagues, Matthews found that Gorsuch was once considered the "dweeb everyone tried to avoid in the college dorm," lest he insist on debating anyone, "so he could make a right-wing argument based on his own highly technical notion of what the rules are, no matter how ridiculous the result."

"Gorsuch would engage on any topic, but his favorite was abortion," Matthews revealed. "According to his college freshman floormate Liz Pleshette, he was the guy who would argue that a pregnant 12-year-old who had been raped needed to carry the pregnancy to term, without any consideration for the reality of the situation, because 'abortion is murder, Liz.'”

She continued: "There’s a certain kind of guy who loves to debate abortion with liberal women, and Gorsuch fit the mold perfectly. When I spoke to her, Pleshette remembered that she would get upset from these interactions but he wouldn’t."

“Even if he was vehemently arguing with you, it was laced with such civility and tight manners and politeness that you could be fooled into thinking that this is someone who is coming to the venture with loads of respect,” Pleshette said.

Matthews also relayed the story of the "frozen trucker" case, which Gorsuch heard arguments for during his time as an appeals court judge. The case, from 2009, involved a trucker named Alphonse Maddin who was fired for leaving a loaded trailer unattended after getting caught in life-threatening cold weather with broken heating. As a succession of courts ruled in Maddin's favor after he filed a complaint against the company, the case eventually reached Gorsuch on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, "one step below the Supreme Court." While the other judges on that court sided with the trucker, Gorsuch dissented.

"Here’s why he ruled against Maddin: Gorsuch looked at that statute that protects workers when they are in conditions they deem dangerous. And he found that the statute says that if they feel they are in danger, they can 'refuse to operate' their vehicle," Matthews explained. "And this was Gorsuch’s problem — Maddin hadn’t refused to operate his vehicle; he had in fact operated it, driving it to the gas station to warm up. And so Maddin shouldn’t receive the protection of this law, Gorsuch wrote. He was the only one of seven judges to come to this shocking conclusion."

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