A unanimous Supreme Court decision
on Wednesday in a disabilities case
took center stage at Judge Neil
Gorsuch's Supreme Court nomination
hearings.
In resolving Endrew F. v. Douglas
County School District, the Supreme
Court overturned a 10th Circuit Court
of Appeals decision that allowed a
school district to refuse residential
educational benefits to a student with
autism.
At issue in the case was a standard
that Gorsuch used in a previous,
similar opinion, which he told the
Senate Judiciary Committee he chose
to do because he believed he was
bound by precedent.
Minority Whip Dick Durbin brought
up the Supreme Court ruling shortly
after it came out and called the high
court decision a "powerful ruling"
and questioned why Gorsuch applied
the standard.
"If I was wrong, I was wrong because
I was bound by circuit precedent,"
Gorsuch said. "And the Supreme
Court is our boss."
Gorsuch called the Supreme Court 's
ruling "fine" and said he intended to
apply the high court's ruling in
future cases. But Democratic Sen.
Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota went a
step further in tying Gorsuch to the
losing party in Wednesday's Supreme
Court decision.
"What happened this morning was
that the Supreme Court unanimously
rejected in an opinion by [Chief]
Justice Roberts the standard that was
used to evaluate how much help kids
with disabilities get in school,"
Klobuchar said. "It wasn't your case,
but it was a standard that was like
the standard you used and nine
justices disagreed with you."
The Judiciary Committee's
Republican members took issue with
their Democratic colleagues'
description of how the case was
adjudicated. Texas Sen. John Cornyn
noted that the Supreme Court
rejected an appeal of Gorsuch's
previous ruling that invoked a
similar standard relating to the one
in the Endrew case.
"If people are going to try to cherry
pick a judge's decisions and to
characterize them as caring or not
caring about children with autism or
whatever the sympathetic plaintiff
would be and of course they deserve
our care and sympathy as a general
matter, but if somebody is going to
try to characterize your entire
judicial career based on the decisions
in these handful of cases … it strikes
me as this is kind of an indictment of
the whole federal judicial system,"
Cornyn said.
Cornyn's Texas colleague, Republican
Sen. Ted Cruz, said Gorsuch's
standard was a result of his having
followed circuit court precedent.
Case