[Tuesday] night, America received the answer to a long-awaited question: Who will President Trump appoint to fill Antonin Scalia’s vacant seat at the U.S. Supreme Court? An FRC commission survey last year revealed that the empty seat was a major factor for almost 80 percent of voters. At 8:00 p.m., Trump took the podium in the White House East Room and announced that he’d selected Judge Neil Gorsuch of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals for the High Court post.

This was excellent news, particularly for the evangelicals who had helped push Trump to victory. Not only had the president made good on his promise to select a nominee from the list of 21 names he had released during his campaign, but Gorsuch was the kind of constitutional originalist that he had promised for the post.

Gorsuch’s pedigree is virtually untouchable. With degrees from Harvard, Columbia and Oxford, he has clerked for both Supreme Court Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy. After 10 years of practice in a prominent DC law firm, Gorsuch then served as principal deputy to the associate attorney general, and as acting associate attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice. In May 2006, President George W. Bush nominated him to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, where he has served for nearly 10 years.

[Wednesday], other conservative organizations joined us in lauding Trump’s pick. Statements from the Susan B. Anthony List, the American Center for Law and Justice and Americans United for Life had nothing but praise for Gorsuch. Ed Whelan, himself a former Scalia clerk and president of the Ethics & Public Policy Center, stated [Tuesday], “I think what we have seen from his opinions and vote from the Hobby Lobby case, as well as his vote in the Little Sisters of the Poor case, is that he is reading the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act correctly and not letting the biases that seem to affect so many judges impair him.”

In addition to a strong stand on religious liberty, Gorsuch has called for a pro-life ethic, outlined in his book, The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia. Gorsuch’s 2005 op-ed for the National Review summarizes his thoughts on the state of increasingly liberal American jurisprudence: “American liberals have become addicted to the courtroom, relying on judges and lawyers rather than elected leaders and the ballot box, as the primary means of effecting their social agenda on everything from gay marriage to assisted suicide to the use of vouchers for private-school education. This overweening addiction to the courtroom as the place to debate social policy is bad for the country and bad for the judiciary.”

When Gorsuch took the podium after President Trump [Tuesday] night, he was humble and articulate, remarking that his nomination was a “most solemn assignment,” and stating, “I am so thankful for my family, my friends and my faith. These are the things that keep me grounded in life’s peaks and sustain me in its valleys.”

I had the privilege of being present at the White House [Tuesday] night for the announcement. Replacing the late Justice Scalia with someone of the same mold will help restore religious liberty and end radical activists’ enthusiasm for using the courts as bully pulpits to advance a social agenda not evident in the Constitution. Even a well-known liberal lawyer had words of praise for Judge Gorsuch. When confronted with the many diverse legal questions — whether they make news or not — coming before the Court today, we can trust Judge Gorsuch to faithfully and evenhandedly apply an originalist understanding of the Constitution.

In a show of today’s environment of political pettiness, some Senate Democrats have already vowed to filibuster Gorsuch’s confirmation vote. But it’s important to note that in 2006, Gorsuch was unanimously confirmed by the Senate to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals! Senate Dems who are still around will have to convince their fellow legislators that they’ve “changed their minds.” Sixty votes are needed in the Senate to avoid a filibuster, and the GOP controls only 52 seats, but in a meeting with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) earlier this week the Senate Majority leader said they would confirm the president’s Supreme Court nominee. And I believe they will.

Originally published here.

Same Fight, Different Day

If there’s anyone who knows how to stonewall, it’s Democrats. Last January, a Budget Reconciliation Bill that repealed Obamacare and defunded Planned Parenthood passed both the House and Senate, only to be vetoed by President Obama. A year later, the process has started anew under President Trump, and the issue that plagued Obamacare for the last seven years — abortion — is once again front and center.

As Congress discusses a repeal-and-replace bill that will substitute Obamacare for a program that is patient-centered and market-based, pro-life organizations are concerned. The current discussion is to use refundable tax credits to cover the costs. The problem is that unless the replacement tax credit plan doesn’t include language explicitly prohibiting federally subsidized health plans from covering abortion, Americans will continue to be forced into an unwilling partnership with the abortion industry. The challenge is including this prohibition in the reconciliation language. The language may not pass muster in the Senate, leaving the GOP responsible for creating a program that potentially expands abortion further than Obamacare.

For that reason we encourage the House to pass the same language that was in the 2015 reconciliation bill that was passed by the Congress. This will allow ample time to craft a full replacement bill. We urge you to call your senators and representatives today and tell them to repeal Obamacare and defund Planned Parenthood immediately, ensuring that any replacement plan excludes subsidies or incentives for abortion — which is not health care.

Originally published here.

Fair Speech for All

It’s an exciting time for religious liberty in America, and [yesterday’s] press conference on Capitol Hill proves it. [Wednesday] afternoon, I was joined by congressional leaders and pastors from all over the nation as we introduced the Free Speech Fairness Act, H.B. 781. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) and Mike Johnson (R-LA), who will introduce the bill in the House, were all in attendance. A companion bill is being introduced in the Senate by Sen. James Lankford (R-OK). Several pastors joined us for the press conference and did a great job communicating the need for the Free Speech Fairness Act. Those pastors included Bishop Garland Hunt along with pastors Stephen Broden, Jim Garlow, Hernan Castano, Khanh Huynh and Dean Nelson. Alliance Defending Freedom’s Christiana Holcomb also joined us.

The Free Speech Fairness Act will repeal the Johnson Amendment of the U.S. tax code, which dates to 1954 and was passed without floor or committee debate. The Johnson Amendment prohibits non-profits and churches from engaging in any activity that might be interpreted as “political,” even if it’s a simple oral or written statement. In 2015 alone, we know of 99 different churches singled out by the IRS for violation of the Johnson Amendment.

This legislation reflects the newly adopted (2016) Republican Party platform language that criticizes the Johnson Amendment for restricting the “First Amendment freedoms of all nonprofit organizations by prohibiting political speech.” The Johnson Amendment is an obviously unconstitutional restraint on free speech. Knowing the IRS has proven to be no friend of religious organizations in the past, it has resorted more frequently to this little-known law in an effort to censor the speech of church and charity leaders.

Pastors have for too long been intimidated into silence. As I told the press [yesterday], Dr. Martin Luther King — the greatest “political pastor” in the nation — spoke forcefully from the pulpit about how the issues of the day were to be driven by pastors and the people in pews. For the whole of American history, churches have been at the forefront of shaping debate and public policy. That’s where they ought to stay.

I urge you to call your member of Congress and urge them to vote “yes” on the Free Speech Fairness Act. It’s time to let our pastors speak.

We live-streamed our news conference, so be sure to visit our Facebook page for full commentary from all the speakers.

Originally published here.

---

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.