WASHINGTON — Normally, nothing could draw the undivided attention of Washington better than a U.S. Supreme Court nomination.
This year, of course, is anything but normal.
Days before Judge Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation hearing begins — the first high court nomination hearing in nearly seven years — the event is barely being noticed. The man who will have a crucial say in matters ranging from abortion, the death penalty, immigration, health care and even the limits of the president’s power is all but being ignored.
It’s true that Gorsuch, if confirmed, won’t likely dramatically shift the court’s ideology. Most of his rulings on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals are in the vein of the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, whose seat he’s nominated to fill.
But that was also the case with several of the most recent high court nominees who went before the Senate Judiciary Committee to be grilled about their ideologies, philosophies and records. Justice Sonia Sotomayor may have replaced Republican appointee Justice David Souter, but he was a solidly liberal vote by the time he retired — and even waited until a Democrat was in the White House to do so.
Still, Washington and the press focused on every aspect of her background, from her rise from poverty to the Ivy League, to controversies surrounding her comments about being a “wise Latina” and her ruling in a case brought by a group of mostly white firefighters claiming reverse racial discrimination.
News agencies offered gavel-to-gavel coverage, as they have with other recent nominees.
But Gorsuch’s hearing, set for Monday, is barely registering. There’s just too much competition for political oxygen: the Republican plan to replace Obamacare, President Trump’s new entry ban, the congressional probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, to name a few.
Then there are the daily stream of non-policy diversions, from Trump’s unsupported accusation that former President Obama spied on him, to his senior advisor Kellyanne Conway’s claim about spying microwaves.
Gorsuch’s hearing is even scheduled to go head-to-head with the first public House Intelligence Committee hearing on the Russian probe. Which one do you think will be carried live by CNN?
A Democratic anti-Gorsuch news conference scheduled for yesterday was nixed due to snowstorm Stella’s approach. If the nation’s capital is buried in snow, that will only serve as another headline to allow Gorsuch’s nomination to stay under the radar.