In an op-ed in The Daily Signal, following the Ninth Circuit's immigration decision, Curt Levey writes that "the confirmation process for Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch takes on added significance" in light of "what will surely be a long series of pitched legal battles—many reaching the high court—as progressives pursue their promise to fight the president at every turn."
Mr. Levey notes that "Democrats, along with much of the mainstream media, assert that this [legal] war is inevitable and necessary to restrain an allegedly lawless president."
However, Levey disagrees:
"If lawlessness is at the center of the coming legal war, it will instead be the lawlessness of judicial activism, which we got a taste of in the Ninth Circuit decision. It will be a war between progressives’ activist vision of the Constitution … and the conservative view, which emphasizes respect for the rule of law, even when it requires ruling against sympathetic parties, such as people wanting a better life in America."
"It is clear on which side of this battle Judge Neil Gorsuch stands," Mr. Levey observes.
"In his ten years on the U.S Court of Appeals, he has proven to be a champion of the rule of law and a critic of judicial activism. That is precisely why Senate Democrats … will fiercely oppose Gorsuch’s confirmation."
Levey concludes that while "Trump’s frustration with the Ninth Circuit’s bad judging is certainly understandable," his "best revenge will be seeing the confirmation of Gorsuch and filling future Supreme Court vacancies with equally stellar champions of the rule of law."
Read Mr. Levey's full op-ed here.