WASHINGTON – During the fourth and final day of the hearing for President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) questioned expert witnesses and Americans affected by Gorsuch’s rulings about his fitness for a lifetime appointment to America’s highest court. Senator Durbin noted that outside witnesses provide invaluable insight into the nominee’s character and principles, given Judge Gorsuch’s reluctance to answer questions about his independence from the Trump Administration and on issues critically important to the American people.
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“[W]hether we’re talking about one young man, young boy with autism or one truck driver, we’re really trying to figure out this judge and what makes him tick and what his values are. All we can rely on are really important decisions, not the routine decisions – they come and go – but the ones where you really have a moment where you have to make a call, with the law and the facts, that really defines you,” Durbin explained.
Among the committee’s witnesses was Jeff Perkins, the father of a student with severe autism who was denied access by Judge Gorsuch and the 10th Circuit Court to the educational services to which he was legally entitled under the Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously struck down the standard that Judge Gorsuch established in this decision, taking issue with Judge Gorsuch’s 2008 opinion that under IDEA, schools need only provide students with disabilities an educational benefit that is “merely… ‘more than de minimis’”.
“One word has made a big difference. It has taken de minimis lower. That was the express statement by Judge Gorsuch, which expanded what was the 10th Circuit standard. When it came to your son, it was the express phrase ‘merely more than de minimis’that the Supreme Court unanimously struck down yesterday, saying that means no education at all,” Senator Durbin told Perkins.
Video of Durbin’s remarks to the Senate Judiciary Committee is available here.
Audio of Durbin’s remarks to the Senate Judiciary Committee is available here.
Durbin has served on the Senate Judiciary Committee for 18 years, during which he has considered the nominations of four current Supreme Court justices. In January, Senator Durbin held a courtesy meeting with Judge Gorsuch and discussed the importance of judicial independence in light of the legal and constitutional disputes plaguing President Trump.
