Judge Gorsuch Reads Prepared Statement at Supreme Court Confirmation Hearing

Judge Neil Gorsuch reads his prepared statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee on the first day of his confirmation hearing to become a Supreme Court, thanking his legal heroes Byron White, Antonin Scalia, and Robert Jackson. Gorsuch says they taught him about the law, the independence of the judiciary and how hard forbearers worked to create the system, and how each generation must take the baton or watch it fall. Gorsuch remarks on the perception that judges are politicians in robes but he would not be a judge if that were true, seeing imperfection, seeing judges agonize over answers which sometimes follow them home at night. Gorsuch offers the example of a decision he had written in which the Supreme Court concurred, that he says happens quietly day in and day out at the Court, asking whether the public knew that Justices Thomas and Sotomayor agree sixty percent of the time and he has been in the majority 99 percent of the time because that is how they do things in the West.