Washington (CNN) More than one year after the death Justice Antonin Scalia, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold its first hearing for a nominee to succeed him on the Supreme Court.

Judge Neil Gorsuch will appear Monday before senators looking to pin him down on his philosophy -- and some will air grievances about why Gorsuch is even here at all. Gorsuch, for his part, will try to defend his approach without discussing specific cases or damaging his smooth nomination in any way.

The Judiciary Committee has four days of hearings scheduled. Here's what to expect:

Democrats get their grill on

Supreme Court justices spend their careers safely ensconced with life tenure in the quiet chambers of the marble palace.

With the stroke of a pen and a packet of opinions the justices can dismantle a major piece of legislation and dash the dreams of those who toil away across the street in the Capitol. As such, senators have one -- and only one -- chance to grill a potential nominee, and express displeasure about past Supreme Court rulings.

Before hearing from Gorsuch, each senator on the Judiciary Committee will get 10 minutes to talk. Members on both sides will strut their constitutional stuff.

Democrats will also use the hearing to go after Trump's early actions such as his travel ban for people from seven -- then revised to six -- majority-Muslim countries, which has been blocked by federal courts from coast to coast.

A glimpse of Gorsuch

After more than three hours of listening Gorsuch will then take the oath, and finally start talking. His opening statement -- expected Monday afternoon -- will be the first glimpse of Gorsuch's views since his "Celebrity Apprentice"- type unveiling on January 31. Gorsuch, an eloquent speaker, is likely to dazzle the audience with a nod to the limited role of the court and the humble job of a judge.

Often it is the opening statement that the public most remembers. Chief Justice John Roberts spoke about calling "balls and strikes" while Justice Sonia Sotomayor detailed the "human consequences" of her decisions and the role her mother played in bringing her out of the projects.

It's an opportunity for Gorsuch, who has spent the past few weeks on a listening tour through Congress, to assert his personality and set the tone.

What he'll say and what he won't

In a time-honored tradition, senators will do their best to get Gorsuch to speak about hot-button issues that could come before the court like immigration, abortion and national security, and he will attempt to gracefully dodge the line of inquiry.

Look for Gorsuch to refer to something called the "Ginsburg standard." The term was coined after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's hearings. She responded more freely about issues and opinions she had already written about, but steered clear of cases that could come before the court in order to guard her impartiality.

Other justices, included Chief Justice John Roberts, referred to the "Ginsburg standard" in order to avoid answering questions about current cases and controversies.

Expect to hear versions of "Every case is different" and "I wouldn't want to pre-judge without looking at all the facts."

The Trump dilemma

Donald Trump has already changed Neil Gorsuch's life by offering him a dream job.

But how does Gorsuch handle the fact that Trump has lambasted specific federal judges when they ruled against him? Very carefully. The hearing will provide the first chance for Gorsuch to publicly refute Trump's judicial attacks.

Through a spokesperson he made it clear in February that he thought such attacks were "disheartening," but now he might have to answer directly.

He'll likely find a way of condemning the comments but not the man. Whatever he says, it will be well practiced. He'll be pressed on his views on executive power as well. Muslim ban? Wiretapping? Limits of regulatory state? Although they may not get the answers they seek, Democrats are sure to launch the inquiry.

The Garland Grievance

One of Gorsuch's first acts as a Supreme Court nominee was to telephone Judge Merrick Garland, the man who was nominated by President Barack Obama for Justice Scalia's seat.

While some Democrats will undoubtedly refer to the seat as "stolen" from Garland, others will be forward-looking.

Democrats have to tread carefully and gauge whether they want to save some firepower. Why? At the end of the day, what is at stake is returning the court to the status quo from before Scalia's death. Gorsuch, a conservative, is replacing a conservative. Some might think that it makes sense to save the big fight if Trump gets another chance to name a Supreme Court justice.

After all, if Justice Kennedy, or a liberal were to step down that could significantly change the balance of power for years to come. That fight could be a battle royale, and make the Gorsuch hearings pale in comparison.</s>The Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday opens hearings on Gorsuch's nomination to the Supreme Court. Liberal and conservative groups have been marshaling their forces for and against the nominee.</s>WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee praised President Donald Trump's Supreme Court pick on Monday for an "unfailing commitment" to the principle of separation of powers, as Judge Neil Gorsuch's confirmation hearing got underway.

"His grasp on the separation of powers — including judicial independence — enlivens his body of work," Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in opening remarks to begin the long-awaited hearing 13 months after Justice Antonin Scalia's death created a vacancy on the Supreme Court.

The court opening was never filled last year as Republicans blocked President Barack Obama's nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, until a new president could be elected. Senate Democrats remain furious about that GOP obstruction and are under intense pressure from liberal base voters opposed to Trump, but they enter the hearing divided over how hard to fight his court choice.

"I'm deeply disappointed it's under these circumstances that we begin these hearings," the top Democrat on the committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, said in her opening remarks, referencing Garland's treatment.

Still, she said senators' responsibility through the hearing was to determine whether Gorsuch is a "reasonable mainstream conservative, or is he not."

Gorsuch, 49, is a respected, highly credentialed and conservative member of the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He arrived in the large and crowded hearing room Monday with amiable smiles all around, and introduced his wife, Louise, other family members as well as law clerks, remarking, "I consider them family, too."

Gorsuch then settled in to listen as Grassley and Feinstein delivered opening statements, which were to be followed by opening remarks from all the other 20 committee members before Gorsuch gets his chance to speak.

Republican Senate leaders intend to move quickly on the nomination. Grassley announced plans for a committee vote on April 3, which would be followed by a vote in the full Senate later that week.

The nomination has been surprisingly low-key thus far on a Capitol Hill distracted by Trump-driven controversies over wiretapping and Russian spying as well as attempts to pass a divisive health care bill. The hearings give Democratic senators a chance to press Gorsuch on issues such as judicial independence, given Trump's attacks on the judiciary, as well as what they view as Gorsuch's own history of siding with corporations in his 10 years on the bench.

Gorsuch's supporters dispute such criticism and argue that the judge is exceptionally well-qualified by background and temperament, mild-mannered and down to earth, the author of lucid and well-reasoned opinions.

Gorsuch told Democratic senators during private meetings that he was disheartened by Trump's criticism of judges who ruled against the president's immigration ban, but Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and others were dissatisfied with those comments and are looking for a more forceful stance on that issue and others.

Democrats have struggled with how to handle the Gorsuch nomination, especially since the nominee is hardly a fire-breathing bomb-thrower. Democrats are under intense pressure from liberal voters to resist Trump at every turn, and many remain irate over the treatment of Garland, who was denied so much as a hearing last year by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Several of the more liberal Senate Democrats have already announced plans to oppose Gorsuch and seek to block his nomination from coming to a final vote. But delay tactics by Democrats could lead McConnell to exercise procedural maneuvers of his own to eliminate the 60-vote filibuster threshold now in place for Supreme Court nominations, and with it any Democratic leverage to influence the next Supreme Court fight.

Republicans control the Senate 52-48. The filibuster rule, when invoked, requires 60 of the 100 votes to advance a bill or nomination, contrasted with the simple 51-vote majority that applies in most cases.</s>Senate Democrats are reliving the snub of Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, at the hearing of President Donald Trump’s pick Monday.

The first three Democrats speaking at the hearing of Judge Neil Gorsuch in the Senate Judiciary Committee began their speeches invoking the decision by Republicans to refuse a hearing or vote on Garland last year after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

Sen. Patrick Leahy called it an “extraordinary blockade” that was “totally unprecedented in our country’s whole history.”

Leahy criticized Trump for relying on conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society last year to vet and recommend his list of potential Supreme Court picks.

“Senate Republicans made a big show last year about respecting the voice of the American people in this process,” he said, referring to Trump’s election victory. “Now they’re arguing that the Senate should rubber-stamp their nominees selected by extreme interest groups and nominated by a president who lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes.”

Sen. Dick Durbin said the actions blocking Garland and subsequent Gorsuch nomination “is part of a Republican strategy to capture our judicial branch of government. That is why the Senate Republicans kept the Supreme Court seat vacant for more than a year and why they left 30 judicial nominees who had received bipartisan approval of this committee to die on the Senate calendar as President Obama left office.”

Leahy said the GOP is conducting “court unpacking scheme,” harkening back to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s failed effort in the 1930s to pack the Supreme Court with more justices, a move lawmakers rejected.

“Remember the Judiciary Committee once stood against a court-packing scheme of a Democratic president that would have eroded judicial independence, and that was a proud moment,” Leahy said. “Now Republicans on this committee are guilty of their own court-unpacking scheme.”

Monday is the first day of four hearings on Gorsuch a federal appeals court judge from Colorado, likely to carry on the conservative legacy of Scalia and be an early legacy-establishing win for Trump.

Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, used his opening statement to decry “executive overreach” and expressed “alarm” over “the threat it poses to the separation of powers.”

Discussing the need for an independent jurist, Grassley said, “Good judges understand this. They know it isn’t their job to fix the law. In a democracy, that right belongs to be the people.”

Democrats will also use the hearing to go after Trump’s early actions such as his travel ban for people from seven — then revised to six — majority-Muslim countries, which has been blocked by federal courts from coast to coast.

The question, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said of Gorsuch, is “whether he will protect the legal and constitutional rights of all Americans.”

“President Trump repeatedly promised to appoint someone in the mold of Justice Scalia,” she said, “and that the nomination of Judge Gorsuch illustrates that he is a man of his word. For those of us on this side, our job is not to theoretically evaluate this or that legal doctrine, or to review Judge Gorsuch’s record in a vacuum. Our job is to determine whether Judge Gorsuch is a reasonable mainstream conservative or is he not.”

Gorsuch’s nomination has flown under the radar in Washington as the focus has been on the litany of Trump actions such as the travel ban, budget proposal that would cut billions of dollars from agencies, executive orders and claims about Obama wiretapping Trump Tower. At the same time, Republicans are pushing through legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare.

About a dozen people in the audience are wearing red “stop Gorsuch” shirts.

Each senator on the Judiciary Committee will speak Monday, followed by two Colorado senators introducing Gorsuch as well as Neal Katyal — a former Obama acting solicitor general. Gorsuch himself is expected to give his opening statement in mid-afternoon. He will face questions from senators Tuesday.

Grassley announced he expects a committee vote on Gorsuch’s nomination on April 3.</s>Thirteen months after Antonin Scalia's death created a vacancy on the Supreme Court, hearings get underway on President Donald Trump's nominee to replace him.

Judge Neil Gorsuch, 49, is a respected, highly credentialed and conservative member of the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. His nomination has been cheered by Republicans and praised by some left-leaning legal scholars, and Democrats head into the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Monday divided over how hard to fight him.

The nomination has been surprisingly low-key thus far in a Capitol distracted by Trump-driven controversies over wiretapping and Russian spying as well as attempts to pass a divisive health care bill. That will change this week as the hearings give Democratic senators a chance to press Gorsuch on issues like judicial independence, given Trump's attacks on the judiciary, as well as what they view as Gorsuch's own history of siding with corporations in his 10 years on the bench.

The first day of the hearings Monday will feature opening statements from senators and Gorsuch himself. Questioning will begin on Tuesday, and votes in committee and on the Senate floor are expected early next month.

"Judge Gorsuch may act like a neutral, calm judge, but his record and his career clearly show that he harbors a right-wing, pro-corporate special interest agenda," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said at a recent news conference featuring sympathetic plaintiffs Gorsuch had ruled against. One was a truck driver who claimed he'd been fired for abandoning his truck when it broke down in the freezing cold.

Gorsuch's supporters dispute such criticism and argue that the judge is exceptionally well-qualified by background and temperament, mild-mannered and down to earth, the author of lucid and well-reasoned opinions.

As for the frozen truck case, Gorsuch wrote a reasonable opinion that merely applied the law as it was, not as he might have wished it to be, said Leonard Leo, who is on leave as executive vice president of the Federalist Society to advise Trump on judicial nominations.

"His jurisprudence is not about results," Leo said.

Gorsuch told Democratic senators during private meetings that he was disheartened by Trump's criticism of judges who ruled against the president's immigration ban, but Schumer and others were dissatisfied with these comments and are looking for a more forceful stance on that issue and others.

Democrats have struggled with how to handle the Gorsuch nomination, especially since the nominee is hardly a fire-breathing bomb-thrower. Democrats are under intense pressure from liberal voters to resist Trump at every turn, and many remain irate over the treatment of Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court, who was denied so much as a hearing last year by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Several of the more liberal Senate Democrats have already announced plans to oppose Gorsuch and seek to block his nomination from coming to a final vote. But delay tactics by Democrats could lead McConnell to exercise procedural maneuvers of his own to eliminate the 60-vote filibuster threshold now in place for Supreme Court nominations, and with it any Democratic leverage to influence the next Supreme Court fight.

Republicans control the Senate 52-48. The filibuster rule when invoked requires 60 of the 100 votes to advance a bill or nomination, contrasted to the simple 51-vote majority that applies in most cases.</s>On Monday, the Senate will start several days of hearings involving Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s nominee to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. Here is a quick overview of what to expect.

1. The hearings start at 11 a.m. on Monday in the Senate Judiciary committee. They will be broadcast live on C-SPAN and other media television and Internet outlets. Here is a link to the official live stream: https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/nomination-of-the-honorable-neil-m-gor

 

 2. The first day of hearings won’t feature much of Gorsuch. Committee members are expected to make speeches that day, with Gorsuch in attendance. He will also read a statement later in the day. Testimony about Gorsuch’s nomination will be at the committee’s conference room at the Hart Senate Office Building.Senator Chuck Grassley, the committee chair, will run the hearings, with as many as 20 Senators making statements and asking questions.

3. Senator Chuck Grassley, the committee chair, will run the hearings, with as many as 20 Senators making statements and asking questions. There are 11 Republicans and 9 Democrats on the commitee.

4. The committee will be reviewing Gorsuch’s past judicial decisions and other public comments. If you are really interested, the Judiciary Committee has published, on its website, the candidate questionnaire and other materials collected related to his nomination, with nearly 200,000 pages of documents. Here is the link: https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/nominations/supreme/pn55-115

5. Gorsuch is expected to testify on Tuesday, March 21. He has been preparing for questions over the past few weeks, with help from the White House counsel’s office and former Senator Kelly Ayotte.

6. The Democrats will grill Gorsuch over some of his decisions on the 10th Circuit bench. In all, Gorsuch wrote 240 opinions over a decade of service at that federal court.

7. Gorsuch’s in-person testimony may only last one day- but that could be a long day! That was the hope expressed by Grassley when he scheduled the hearings back in February. “That could be a short day if we’ve got one round. Or if we’ve got two rounds or three rounds, it could get to be a long day, but … my intention is to get it done that one day,” Grassley said last month.

8. The remaining day (or two) will add testimony from expert witnesses. Outside witnesses and members of the American Bar Association are expected to testify on the final day of hearings.

9. Will the hearings last for just three days? The hearings for Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor each lasted four days. Kagan testified for two full days back in 2010 as did Sotomayor in 2009. In 2006, Samuel Alito testified for 18 hours over a 2 ½ period and answered about 700 questions, according to official transcripts. Alito’s entire hearing process lasted five days.

10. What kind of questions will Gorsuch get? In prior years, past e-mails, memos, law review articles, and public statements have been questioned by the Senators, along with case decisions and general questions about the Constitution.

After the hearings, the committee will vote to recommend the nomination to the full Senate for a vote in the weeks following the hearing. Once a committee recommendation is made, then the full Senate will take up the debate, including the threat of a filibuster from the Democrats.</s>The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has opened confirmation hearings on Judge Neil Gorsuch, President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court.

The panel’s chairman, Republican Chuck Grassley, opened the first day of hearings with statements about what the judges role should be in interpreting the laws of our country:

Grassley emphasized that judges should not rewrite the laws of the people:

Gorsuch’s nomination has been cheered by Republicans and praised by some left-leaning legal scholars.

Democrats headed into the committee hearings divided over how hard to fight him.

Questioning of Judge Gorsuch will begin on Tuesday.</s>Judge Neil Gorsuch is facing Senate Judiciary Committee Monday for what is expected to be four days of hearings on his Supreme Court nomination.

If confirmed, Gorsuch, a federal appeals court judge from Colorado, is likely to carry on the conservative legacy of Justice Antonin Scalia and be an early legacy-establishing win for President Donald Trump.

The ninth seat on the bench has been vacant since Scalia’s sudden death in early 2016, and Democrats will also use the hearing to vent their anger once more of the Republican-controlled Senate not taking up President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, last year.

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein started by saying she was “deeply disappointed” that Garland was passed over as a nominee.

Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, used his opening statement to decry “executive overreach” and expresses “alarm” over “the threat it poses to the separation of powers.”

Discussing the need for an independent jurist, Grassley said, “Good judges understand this. They know it isn’t their job to fix the law. In a democracy, that right belongs to be the people.”

Democrats will also use the hearing to go after Trump’s early actions such as his travel ban for people from seven — then revised to six — majority-Muslim countries, which has been blocked by federal courts from coast to coast.

The question, Feinstein said of Gorsuch, is “whether he will protect the legal and constitutional rights of all Americans.”

“President Trump repeatedly promised to appoint someone in the mold of Justice Scalia,” she said, “and that the nomination of Judge Gorsuch illustrates that he is a man of his word. For those of us on this side, our job is not to theoretically evaluate this or that legal doctrine, or to review Judge Gorsuch’s record in a vacuum. Our job is to determine whether Judge Gorsuch is a reasonable mainstream conservative or is he not.”

Gorsuch’s nomination has flown under the radar in Washington as the focus has been on the litany of Trump actions such as the travel ban, budget proposal that would cut billions of dollars from agencies, executive orders and claims about Obama wiretapping Trump Tower. At the same time, Republicans are pushing through legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare.

A about dozen people in the audience are wearing red “stop Gorsuch” shirts.

Each senator on the Judiciary Committee will speak Monday, followed by two Colorado senators introducing Gorsuch as well as Neal Katyal — a former Obama acting solicitor general. Gorsuch himself is expected to give his opening statement in mid-afternoon. He will face questions from senators Tuesday.

Grassley announced he expects a committee vote on Gorsuch’s nomination on April 3.</s>Neil Gorsuch testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on his nomination to be an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court during a hearing in the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. on March 21, 2017.

Gorsuch says he’s made no promises for rulings

Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch is telling senators that he keeps “an open mind for the entire process” when he issues rulings.

“No such thing as a Republican judge or a Democratic judge”: Gorsuch

Neil Gorsuch, President Donald Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court pick, said on Tuesday he would have no trouble ruling against the president because there’s “no such thing as a Republican judge or a Democratic judge.”

Gorsuch: No difficulty ruling against any party

In his second day of confirmation hearings, Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch says he has no trouble ruling against anyone, even President Donald Trump, if that’s what the law requires.

Judge Neil Gorsuch gave his opening statement on Monday, the first day of his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “If I am confirmed, I will do all my powers permit, to be a faithful servant to the constitution and laws of this great nation,” Gorsuch said.</s>WASHINGTON- Senate hearings begin this morning for Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, the man President Donald Trump wants to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who died more than a year ago. Gorsuch is a respected, highly credentialed and conservative member of the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

 

And Democrats head into the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings divided over how hard to fight him.
The Senate Judiciary Committee begins hearings on the nomination of Judge Neil M. Gorsuch to the Supreme Court of the United States.