A Supreme Court Nominee Who Understands the Danger of Power
Gorsuch: "The genius of the American constitutional system is the dispersal of power. Once power is centralized in one person, or one part [of government], a Bill of Rights is just words on paper.”
by Laura Bennett Peterson
April 5, 2017
Amid the spectacle of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearings on Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, there emerged that rare visitor to the U.S. Capitol: some nuggets of common sense. These nuggets came from Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and from the Supreme Court nominee himself. They addressed that feature of our constitutional design that most powerfully preserves and protects liberty.
That feature, which limits what the government may do, is not the Bill of Rights. As the late Justice Antonin Scalia, whose seat on the Court Judge Gorsuch would fill, liked to point out, “Every tin-horn dictator in the world today, every president for life, has a Bill of Rights.”
No, it is the Constitution itself w…