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| Blumenthal, the Senator from Planned Parenthood |
Blumenthal did not like Gorsuch then, and his carefully
calibrated distaste for the “conservative” justice may still be found, in the
form of an op-ed piece he had written to the Hartford Courant, still posted
on his own site. The op-ed piece appeared in the Courant on March 21,
2017.
“On Monday,” it
begins, “I will vote against the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch as United
States Supreme Court justice. I made this decision after questioning him
extensively at the Judiciary Committee hearing, reviewing his record, and
deliberating carefully and deeply. It is one of the most important votes I will
ever cast.”
And it ends with a
bang: “Today, we still know very little about Judge Gorsuch’s core beliefs. But
here is what we do know: We know that the man who hired him has said he passes
his right-wing litmus test. We know that conservative organizations have spent
millions on the prospect that he will move American law dramatically to the
right. And we know that he will not answer questions that his predecessors
answered about core tenets of American jurisprudence. In short, he has left us
with substantial doubt.
And then Blumenthal
engaged in a little Borking of Gorsuch: “That doubt leaves women wondering how
long they will have autonomy over their health care decisions, same-sex couples
questioning whether they might be denied the right to marry the person they
love, workers and consumers doubting their rights, and Americans fearing the
court will abandon protections of privacy, equality and the rule of law. That
doubt is why I cannot support this nomination, and why I will work to block it
using every tool at my disposal.”
On April 5, 2017, Connecticut
Commentary: Red Notes From A Blue State sought
to allay Blumenthal’s feverous doubt in a posting titled “Blumenthal’s
Potemkin Village Objections to Gorsuch: “Those who know Mr. Gorsuch know he will not allow himself to be put
on a short political chain to be jerked here and there by cheap politicians,
which would prevent him from reaching decisions according to a rational
interpretation of the law. That has been Mr. Gorsuch’s accomplished end ever
since his appointment to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals eleven years ago on
a unanimous voice-vote by Mr. Schumer and other Democratic members of the U.S.
Congress. Despite Mr. Blumenthal’s wrongheaded assumptions, Mr. Gorsuch cannot
properly be described as either conservative, liberal or a progressive, terms
used to describe politicians such as Mr. Blumenthal, the Senator From Planned Parenthood,
who is progressive on the matter of late term abortion. Mr. Gorsuch is indeed
an originalist like Mr. Scalia, whom Mr. Gorsuch will replace without
disturbing a balance in the high court that dates to 1986, when Mr. Scalia was
seated as an Associate Justice. Originalism, however, is not a political
orientation; it is a mode of constitutional interpretation the opposite of
which is anarchic Constitutional interpretation.”
As is the case with
all the posts on Connecticut Commentary, this posting was also sent as a column
to various Connecticut newspapers.
The LGBTQ community
in the United States and Connecticut, we are advised in a June 16, 2020 front
page, below the fold Hartford
Courant story, “were elated
at the momentous U.S. Supreme Court decision announced Monday” whose author was the same fellow wearing Blumenthal’s black halo. It seems reasonable to ask
Blumenthal, following Gorsuch’s momentous decision supporting the rights of
gays in their work environments, whether his doubt that Gorsuch might deny same
sex couples the right to marry still assails him.
In his home state,
Attorney General William Tong praised the Gorsuch written decision: “This
decision means that every LGBTQ person, regardless of where they live, will be afforded
that same right to be free from harassment and discrimination.” Gorsuch wrote
in his decision “an employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or
transgender fires that person for traits of actions it would not have
questioned in members of a different sex.”
The decision is not
conservative; it is not liberal; it is not progressive. It does not seek to
impose a quasi-legislative solution to a social set of circumstances. The
Gorsuch decision applies settled law to employment discrimination. Former
Justice Scalia, an origianalist, would have supported the Gorsuch decision. Originalism
– which prevents judges from wandering beyond Constitutional prescriptions -- is
a sturdy bulwark supporting the rights of the citizen against revolutionary and
intemperate politicians.
It’s time for
Blumenthal to open his beak and tell us whether he thinks a decision of this
kind is consonant with his unfounded doubt that Gorsuch would deprive gays of a
right to marry or deep-six their rights to privacy, equality and the rule of
law. Shouldn’t someone put the question to him and wait around for an unambiguous non-partisan answer?
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