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 Sidebar, 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 affirmances, upholding, by a vote of four to four, lower court decisions on immigration law, federalism, freedom of speech, 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 (Summary affirmances are non-precedential and usually consist of a terse order that does not indicate the Court's voting alignment.)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 decisive vote. 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 products discuss Justice Scalia's jurisprudence and other aspects of the Court vacancy.
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