On the recordApril 4, 2017
His philosophy represents the height of activism, because it would allow courts to substitute their policy judgments for agency expertise. Abandoning the Chevron doctrine and the principles it represents invokes a desire to destroy a broad array of rules that protect critical rights. One such rule was issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in the aftermath of a Connecticut tragedy at L'Ambiance Plaza decades ago when a collapse killed 28 workers in Bridgeport, CT. The rule prohibiting the use of the lift slab construction technique that led to L'Ambiance's collapse has now saved the lives of others. But would it have survived a review by Judge Gorsuch? My fear is that he would have struck it down and substituted the activist instinct of a judge instead--protecting the corporations that might use it. Today we still know very little about Judge Gorsuch's core beliefs because he evaded so many questions. But here is what we do know. We know that the man who hired him has said he passes his rightwing litmus test. We know that conservative organizations have spent millions of dollars on the prospect that he will move American law dramatically to the right. And we know that he will not answer questions that his Republican-appointed predecessors answered about core tenets of American jurisprudence. In short, he has left us with substantial doubt. Let me conclude on this note--that doubt.…
