President Donald Trump Monday morning that he will announce his choice to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday evening.
Senior admin. official confirms SCOTUS pick could be announced as early as tmrw or Tuesday - rather than Thursday, as originally expected.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said voters are expecting better behavior.
During their year without a ninth justice, the court continued to work, with some cases affected by Scalia's death. Unless Trump can win over eight of them, Republicans will have to change the Senate's rules, eliminating the 60-vote threshold needed to bring the nomination to the floor.
They apply notwithstanding the shabby treatment of President Barack Obama's last nominee for the court, Judge Merrick Garland, by the Republican Senate leadership previous year.
Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters held signs and chanted on the sidewalk at the base of the Supreme Court steps.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware, a member of the Judiciary Committee told CNN he is still seething over the Republicans' decision to block Judge Merrick Garland from filling the seat when they refused to hold hearings and votes on his nomination past year.
Given the vast impact the US Supreme Court has on US political life, the nominee will face tough questions from the Senate during any confirmation hearings. By February 2009, the Senate had confirmed 11 Obama nominees; this year, due to Democratic resistance, the Senate has confirmed just two, along with Central Intelligence Agency director Mike Pompeo. Hardiman, 51, was not initially considered a leading candidate, but he sits on the same federal appeals court as Trump's sister and some of his prior rulings on immigration have refused to grant legal rights to anyone who is not a US citizen, which could help the White House should its latest executive orders wind up before the Supreme Court. Trump has said that his nominee will vote to overturn Roe.
Women March across the country
This WE being all the groups and people that Trump has insulted, marginalized, and threatened over the course of his campaign. We don't support a regime that treats you as second class citizens, as property, as objects to shame, punish, or belittle.
Neil Gorsuch, Colorado, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.At 49 the youngest of the group, Gorsuch is the most natural replacement among them for Scalia. Joe Manchin told reporters when asked if he would support his party's blocking of a Trump Supreme Court pick. "The president has a right to have his nominees taken up". That could signal that his nomination by Trump could provoke a clash.
"What the president has done is not in the interest of security", House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said. "We need to fight this Constitution-shredding gambit with everything we've got".
Trump initially issued a list of 21 nominees during his campaign.
Gorsuch clerked for Justices Anthony Kennedy and Bryon White and worked in the U.S. Justice Department during the tenure of George W. Bush, the Los Angeles Times reported. "I think you're going to be very, very excited".
On top of that, Trump is filling the sizable shoes of Scalia, perhaps the most revered conservative judge of his time.
Thomas Hardiman, Pennsylvania, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.A dark horse among the finalists, Hardiman, 51, isn't unfamiliar to Trump.
A Judicial Crisis Network brief noted Gorsuch's decision in the case of United States v. Games-Perez, where the appeals judge wrote that "there is 'a long tradition of widespread gun ownership by private individuals in this country".
Some reports suggest two other appeals court judges, William Pryor and Diane Sykes, still could be in contention.
