Neil Gorsuch Supreme Court nomination

Neil Gorsuch Supreme Court nomination
President Trump announcing the nomination, accompanied by Gorsuch and Gorsuch's wife, Louise
Nominee	Neil Gorsuch
Nominated by	Donald Trump (president of the United States)
Succeeding	Antonin Scalia (associate justice)
Date nominated	January 31, 2017
Date confirmed	April 7, 2017
Outcome	Approved by the U.S. Senate
Vote of the Senate Judiciary Committee
Votes in favor	11
Votes against	9
Result	Reported favorably
Senate cloture votes
Votes in favor	55
Votes against	45
Result	First cloture motion failed, but the second cloture motion succeeded due to the passage of the "nuclear option”
Senate confirmation vote
Votes in favor	54
Votes against	45
Result	Confirmed

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On January 31, 2017, soon after taking office, President Donald Trump, a Republican, nominated Neil Gorsuch for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to succeed Antonin Scalia, who had died almost one year earlier. Then-president Barack Obama, a Democrat, nominated Merrick Garland to succeed Scalia on March 16, 2016, but the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate did not vote on the nomination. Majority leader Mitch McConnell declared that as the presidential election cycle had already commenced, it made the appointment of the next justice a political issue to be decided by voters. The Senate Judiciary Committee refused to consider the Garland nomination, thus keeping the vacancy open through the end of Obama's presidency on January 20, 2017.

When nominated, Gorsuch was a sitting judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, a position to which he had been appointed by President George W. Bush in 2006. Democratic Senators launched a filibuster against Gorsuch's nomination to block his confirmation. However, Republicans invoked the "nuclear option", eliminating the filibuster with respect to Supreme Court nominees.^[1] The Senate ultimately confirmed Gorsuch's nomination to the Supreme Court by a 54–45 vote on April 7, 2017 (all Republicans and three Democrats voted in his favor). Ten days after his confirmation, Gorsuch heard his first case as the 101st associate justice of the Court, in Anthony Perry vs. Merit Systems Protection Board.^[2]