For Immediate Release: 

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Contact: Jim Waters @ 859.444-5630 (office) 270.320.4376 (cell)

 (BOWLING GREEN, Ky.) — President Donald J. Trump's decision to nominate Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Neil Gorsuch as the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court is receiving high marks from legal experts in the commonwealth.

Former Kentucky Chief Justice Joseph Lambert said he was “very pleased” about the Gorsuch decision

“The selection of Judge Gorsuch is outstanding,” Lambert, who was a member of the state's highest court for 22 years and as chief justice from 1998-2008, said in a statement to the Bluegrass Institute. “His entire career has been characterized by excellence. If any judge could replace Justice Scalia, this is the person.”

Gorsuch graduated with honors from Harvard Law School and Columbia University, and received his Doctorate in Philosophy from Oxford University. He was appointed by President George W. Bush to the Tenth Circuit in 2006 and clerked for current Justice Anthony Kennedy and former Justice Byron White.

"Based on his past rulings, it's abundantly clear that Judge Gorsuch understands and accepts that the role of judges is to interpret the law, not impose personal policy preferences, priorities or ideologies on their fellow citizens," Bluegrass Institute president Jim Waters said. "Considering the tremendous cost of Washington's heavy bureaucratic hand on Kentucky coal miners and small businesses during the Obama administration and the fact that our state has one of the nation's fastest growing incarceration rates, Kentuckians will appreciate Judge Gorsuch's obvious distaste for policies that overregulate and over-criminalize."

Judge Gorsuch's intellectual seriousness and stellar qualifications make him the kind of jurist that everyone on both sides of the political aisle should support.

“His great respect for Congress, the Constitution and the rule of law have earned him an up-or-down vote,” Waters said. “As he has written, ‘statutes are a product of compromise’ and their text must be respected.”

For more information, please contact Jim Waters at jwaters@freedomkentucky.com, 859.444.5630 (office) or 270.320.4376 (cell).