About 25 people stood in 25 degree weather outside the Byron White United States Courthouse in Denver to oppose the nomination by President Donald Trump of US 10th Circuit Court Judge Neil Gorsuch to the US Supreme Court.
Zach Patz held three signs because he said that his protests could not fit on one, “There’s so many things at this point that happen everyday. In the Senate and the House there’s ten things to be outraged about and by the next time you have time to be enraged about anything else, there’s something else that [Donald Trump] is doing equally appalling, equally infringing on someone else’s rights, that it’s hard to even be out here. So I have three different signs because it’s the only way I can protest all the things” One of his signs read, “NO RACISM, NO FACISM.”
“I’m here with a sign that says ‘Do not concede the stolen seat.’ That’s exactly what it is. This seat was stolen. Cameron Severson was referring to an effort by former President Barack Obama last year to fill the seat of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia who died February 13, 2016. The Senate would not consider Obama’s nomination US Circuit Judge Merrick Garland, and refused confirmation hearings. “President Obama made a conciliatory effort to nominate a moderate person to sit on the Supreme Court and the Republicans just blocked it on principle because the only thing they stood for was to reject everything that Obama put forward no matter how reasonable. I don’t think this seat belongs to the Republicans.”
Gorsuch’s academic degrees are from Columbia, and Harvard Law where he studied at the same time as former President Obama. He clerked for Supreme Court Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy. Gorsuch worked as Deputy Associate Attorney General for the US Department of Justice and most recently has worked on the bench of the US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, where demonstrators held signs and expressed their opposition to his nomination. He authored The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, published in 2006 that argues against doctor assisted suicide, and supported bans on the practice. In Colorado, his home state, physician-assisted suicide was approved in November by a two-thirds margin.
“I’ve read more and more about Gorsuch and he is not an American in my opinion.” Randee Webb is a member of What the Frack-Arapahoe, “[Trump] has no respect for the separation of church and state. He does not protect the victims of police brutality. He does not respect our environment, and without the environment we cannot survive. I plan continue to be active. I think it’s my duty as a person, and as a citizen. Resistance is patriotic.”
Nancy Nixon drew a sign with a caricature of Donald Trump wearing a tie with the words, “Made in China.” The Statue of Liberty is demanding of Trump to drink black oil, a reference to Trump’s support of the oil industry. Nixon said that her inspiration for the drawing drew from her listening to Trump expressing that he doesn’t want us to send our jobs overseas because it take American jobs, but all of his products are manufactured overseas, most of them in China and Taiwan. That’s why China is so mad at him, because he called Taiwan and they’re afraid Donald is going to give all our jobs to Taiwan.” As a final message Nixon advised, “Just remember your First Amendment right.”
The Senate vote for confirmation becomes complicated when considering the history of rule-changing for previous confirmations. The majority party – in this case Republicans – can change confirmation rules to confirm on a simple majority vote of 51 senators. Republicans have 52 seats. This rule-change would be in contrast to an up-or-down vote that would require 60 senate vote. This changing of rules would affect the filibuster option that Democrats have suggested that they may use.
