President Donald Trump on Tuesday night announced Boulder resident and University of Colorado law professor Neil Gorsuch as his nominee to fill the Supreme Court seat previously held by the late Antonin Scalia.

The two finalists for the high court slot — Gorsuch and Pittsburgh’s Thomas Hardiman — were both summoned to Washington ahead of Tuesday’s announcement, adding a dash of drama to the announcement from the reality television star-turned-president.

Gorsuch, a self-proclaimed originalist who’s often referred to as a less-abrasive version of Scalia, serves on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.

A conservative with a writer’s flair and polished legal pedigree, Gorsuch would be the youngest Supreme Court nominee in a quarter century.

He would serve alongside Justice Anthony Kennedy, for whom Gorsuch clerked in the early ’90s. Gorsuch also clerked for Justice Byron White, a CU graduate and longtime Colorado resident.

Richard Collins, a University of Colorado professor of constitutional law, said he expects Gorsuch will be “a judge’s judge,” if confirmed.

“He’s a very straight shooter and writes very clear opinions,” said Collins, who knows Gorsuch through CU Law, where the 49-year-old has taught antitrust law and ethics for eight years. “He doesn’t monkey around, doesn’t deviate from what I think anyone would characterize as the proper role of a judge.

“He’s a very courteous, straightforward man, and a very decent fellow.”

Gorsuch has a stellar reputation among his CU students, who’ve described him as “brilliant,” “challenging,” and charming in a way similar to a “1950s game-show host.”

Hardiman, the 51-year-old not chosen Tuesday night, has a conservative track record and working-class background, and he serves alongside Trump’s sister on the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Both were appointed federal appeals court judges by President George W. Bush. Gorsuch served for two years in Bush’s Department of Justice before the president appointed him to an appeals court seat. There he has been known for clear, colloquial writing, advocacy for court review of government regulations, defense of religious freedom and skepticism toward law enforcement.

Neil Gorsuch file

BIRTHDATE: Aug. 29, 1967

BIRTHPLACE: Denver

EDUCATION:

1988 — B.A., Columbia University; 1991 — J.D., Harvard Law School; 2004 — D.Phil., University of Oxford

CURRENT JOB:

2006-present: Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (appointed by President George W. Bush)

JOB HISTORY:

2005-2006: Principal deputy, associate attorney general, U.S. Department of Justice

1995-2005: Private law practice, Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans, and Figel, Washington, D.C.

1998-2005: Partner, Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans, and Figel, Washington, D.C.

1995-1998: Associate, Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans, and Figel, Washington, D.C.

1993-1994: Law clerk, Hon. Byron White and Hon. Anthony Kennedy, U.S. Supreme Court

1991-1992: Law clerk, Hon. David Sentelle, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit

FAMILY: Wife, Louise; two daughters, Emma (born 1999) and Belinda (born 2001). Gorsuch’s mother, Anne Gorsuch Burford, was the first female head of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Ronald Reagan.

OTHER ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

While at Columbia, Gorsuch co-founded a newspaper (The Federalist) and Betebet a magazine (The Morningside Review).

QUOTE:

“The independence of the judiciary depends upon people in both parties being willing to serve, good people being willing to serve who are capable and willing to put aside their personal politics and preferences to decide cases and to follow the law and not try and make it.” — from his 2006 confirmation hearing for the 10th Circuit.

Trump is also said to have considered a third judge, William Pryor, but Pryor’s standing appeared to slip in recent days, in part because his reputation as a staunch conservative seemed likely to make him a rich target for Democratic senators in a confirmation hearing.

Gorsuch was among the judges who appeared on Trump’s list of 21 possible choices that he made public during the campaign, and each has met with him to discuss the vacancy that arose when Antonin Scalia died nearly a year ago.

“Judge Gorsuch has outstanding legal skills, a brilliant mind, tremendous discipline and has earned bipartisan support,” Trump said, announcing the nomination in his first televised address from the White House.

If confirmed, Gorsuch will restore a general conservative tilt to the court but is not expected to call into question high-profile rulings on abortion, gay marriage and other issues in which the court has been divided 5-4 in recent years.

He has contended that courts give too much deference to government agencies’ interpretations of statutes, a deference that stems from a Supreme Court ruling in a 1984 case.

He also sided with two groups that successfully challenged the Obama administration’s requirements that employers provide health insurance that includes contraception.

Gorsuch also has a reputation for occasionally ruling against what might be considered the obvious conservative side.

Appellate lawyer Marcy Glenn, a partner at Denver’s Holland & Hart, said that in two cases she argued before him, he ruled in favor of the “little guy” — a pro-bono case on the ACLU’s behalf in 2010 and a 2015 case involving property damages for neighbors of the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant south of Boulder.

“I knew he was smart before that, but (those cases) also confirmed that he can be very fair and he’s not results-oriented,” Glenn said. “Politically, if we call him a conservative, these were outcomes that stereotypical conservatives would not like.”

Glenn added that Gorsuch, in her experience, “was engaged and asked good questions, fair questions.”

The ninth seat on the Supreme Court has sat empty since Scalia died in February 2016. President Barack Obama nominated U.S. Circuit Court Judge Merrick Garland for the vacancy, but Senate Republicans refused to consider the pick, saying the seat should be filled only after the November election.

That GOP effort outraged the White House and congressional Democrats, who have suggested they might seek to block any choice Trump makes. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, of New York, has said Democrats will oppose any nominee outside of the mainstream.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said that while Democrats may not like the “political or philosophical background” of the president’s pick, “the criteria in terms of academia background, time on the bench, the expertise and criteria meets the intent of both Republicans and Democrats.”

If Democrats decide to filibuster, the fate of Trump’s nominee could rest in the hands of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Trump has encouraged McConnell to change the rules of the Senate and make it impossible to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee — a change known in the Senate as the “nuclear option.”

A conservative group already has announced plans to begin airing $2 million worth of ads in support of the nominee in Indiana, Missouri, Montana and North Dakota — four states that Trump won and in which Democrats will be defending their Senate seats in 2018.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Alex Burness: 303-473-1389, burnessa@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/alex_burness

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