Francois op ed supporting Gorsuch nomination published in the San Francisco Daily Journal

March 05, 2017 | By TONY FRANCOIS

A few weeks ago, Erwin Chemerinsky, noted constitutional scholar and Dean of Law at UC Irvine, published an op ed in the San Francisco Daily Journal arguing that Senate Democrats should filibuster the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court of the United States. Dean Chemerinsky’s piece was long on hyperbole and short on logic, especially in its misrepresentation of originalism as a school of judicial interpretation.

Last week, the Daily Journal was good enough to publish my response. The take away:

Chemerinsky fails to acknowledge Judge Gorsuch’s constitutional defense of the Constitutional role of the judiciary in checking arbitrary and abusive executive power. Gorsuch’s concurring opinion in Gutierrez-Brizuela v. Lynch, 834 F.3d 1142 (10th Cir. 2016) argues cogently that presidents and their bureaucrats (immigration officials, no less) should be subject to independent judicial oversight when applying federal statutes, instead of dictating to judges what the law allows them to do. That sounds like something Senate Democrats should agree with, not oppose.