If he’s confirmed to the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch would be the first person to serve alongside a justice for whom he once clerked: Anthony M. Kennedy. That would land him in the minority — for now — on issues such as affirmative action, abortion rights and same-sex marriage. Specifically, they tried to get Gorsuch to say that a long line of cases establishing rights to contraceptives and abortion were correctly decided. Without a similar commitment, “gay and lesbian Americans have to wonder” whether the decisions that afforded them rights are safe, Blumenthal told Gorsuch. Malcolm said he heard nothing during the hearings that made him doubt that Gorsuch is fit to be Scalia’s successor.

Source: Washington Post March 25, 2017 01:01 UTC