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Fox Chapel's Thomas M. Hardiman came up just short in his bid for a seat on the Supreme Court bench as President Donald Trump announced Tuesday night that he tapped Colorado's Neil Gorsuch to fill a vacancy on the nation's highest court.
“Judge Gorsuch has a superb intellect, an unparalleled legal education and a commitment to interpreting the Constitution according to its text. He will make an incredible Justice as soon as the Senate confirms him,” Trump said.
Trump reportedly summoned Hardiman, 51, and Gorsuch, 49, to Washington in advance of the highly anticipated announcement. The conservative appeals court judges rose to the top of a field of 21 candidates that Trump identified during his campaign.
With the announcement, Gorsuch became the youngest nominee to the Supreme Court in a quarter-century. The Associated Press said that Gorsuch, who has a law degree from Harvard, possesses “a writer's flair and polished legal pedigree.”
The Massachusetts-born Hardiman, the first in his family to go to college, was in line to become the only Supreme Court justice without an Ivy League law degree. He drove a taxi to help pay for law school Deneme Bonusu at Georgetown University.
After working in private practice for two years in Washington, D.C., Hardiman settled in Pittsburgh, the hometown of his wife, the former Lori Zappala.
Hardiman worked in private practice in Pittsburgh for more than a decade. He was appointed to the U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh in 2003 and the Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 2007. Hardiman is one of two Third Circuit judges who maintains chambers in Pittsburgh.
A political fight erupted in Washington nearly a year ago after conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died Feb. 13, leaving the bench with four justices who had been appointed by Republican presidents and four by Democrats. Senate Republicans refused to act upon President Obama's nomination of federal judge Merrick Garland.
Tom Fontaine is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 412-320-7847 or tfontaine@tribweb.com.
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