Gorsuch Takes the Bench

Newly sworn in Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch wasted no time
asking questions and making his presence felt. Photo: Shutterstock

Newly sworn in Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch heard his first cases on Monday, and he wasted no time asking questions and making his presence felt. But what does the future hold for Gorsuch and his work with SCOTUS?

“Justice Gorsuch will be a brilliant and consistently conservative addition to the Court that will largely restore the voting equation that prevailed before Justice Scalia’s untimely death,” wrote Miami lawyer and former US attorney Kendall Coffey.

“While Gorsuch is expected to be a consistent conservative voice on issues generally,” Coffey continued, “it will be interesting to see if he follows Justice Scalia’s independent-minded approach” on issues like home searches and the right to trial by jury in criminal cases.

In any event, Gorsuch didn’t have much time to get up to speed on his new position. Only one week after being sworn in, he took the bench on Monday and began hearing cases—three this week and four scheduled for next week.

Gorsuch is the only the second justice to join the court partway through a term. The first was Justice Samuel Alito in 2006. Though in Alito’s case, he had three weeks to get ready for his first arguments. 

By all accounts, however, Gorsuch has hit his stride right away, asking questions and getting all the information needed to do his part in these early cases.

The most potentially challenging of these cases may very well be the one heard on Wednesday. At issue: whether or not the state of Missouri violated the Constitution by refusing to let Trinity Lutheran Church be part of a grant program that pays for playgrounds to be resurfaced. At the time, Missouri law stated that churches and other religious institutions were not eligible for federal funding.

The case was originally reviewed back in January of 2016, but Justice Scalia’s sudden death put it on the back burner until now.

Based on statements from Wednesday, the majority of SCOTUS judges, including Gorsuch, seem to support Trinity Lutheran in its bid to get access to the funds, which come from taxpayer money.

The difficulty comes from the fact that, while the Missouri law (which has since been changed by Missouri Republican Governor Eric Greitens) states that “no money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, section, or denomination of religion,” the state government must also uphold the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from preferring or promoting religion over non-religion, or vice-versa.

“I’m not sure it’s a ‘free exercise’ [of religion] question,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor. “No one is asking the church to change its beliefs. The state is just saying it doesn’t want to be involved in giving [public] money to the church.”

Justice Elena Kagan disagreed. “You’re denying one set of actors from competing [for the grant money] because of religion,” she said, noting it was a “clear burden on a Constitutional right.”

Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer (15-577) is expected to receive a ruling in late June. And that ruling may very well give Gorsuch the chance to cast a deciding vote, not to mention setting the trend for upcoming hearings regarding clashes between church and state.