This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Washington • Sens. Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee offered their glove-in-hand support on Tuesday for the fight to confirm President Donald Trump's pick for the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, whose rulings on religious freedom are easy talking points for conservatives eager for a court that continues a tilt in their direction.

Gorsuch, a judge on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Utah in its jurisdiction, has favored religious organizations in various cases, siding with Pleasant Grove in a battle to keep its Ten Commandments monument and for Utah Gov. Herbert to strip Planned Parenthood of its funding.

Trump's Supreme Court nominee wrote the dissent in the Utah reproductive-rights case that in July granted the group a preliminary injunction, nullifying a move by Herbert to block $272,000 of federal funds to the agency.

"It is undisputed," Gorsuch wrote, "that the governor was free as a matter of law to suspend the funding in question for this reason," namely in response to unsubstantiated videos that purported to show the clinics illegally selling fetal tissue.

Hatch, the former chairman of and longest-serving Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Lee joined Trump at the White House for the prime-time announcement.

"With Neil Gorsuch, the president has made a standout choice," Hatch said in a prepared statement. "Judge Gorsuch is one of the brightest stars on the federal bench, displaying a caliber of intellectual leadership that is rare even among the most qualified jurists."

Hatch — who has played a role in confirming 12 Supreme Court justices during his tenure, including all eight currently sitting on the bench — called Trump's nomination an "inspired choice."

The pick passes over Lee, along with his brother Thomas Lee, associate chief justice of the Utah Supreme Court, whom Trump named as potential Supreme Court picks, among 21 conservatives, during the now-president's campaign.

"I've had the privilege of arguing before Judge Gorsuch, and he is extremely impressive," said Mike Lee, who is an attorney and clerked for Associate Justice Samuel Alito. "He is a prepared, thoughtful and careful jurist who has demonstrated a strong commitment to textualism and originalism. His opinions are well-reasoned and brilliantly written, and he has enriched the 10th Circuit's jurisprudence in a number of areas during his 10 years on the court."

Gorsuch would replace the late Antonin Scalia, an associate justice who died nearly a year ago and whose seat has gone unfilled in an increasingly partisan fight in Washington.

Democrats — still seething after then-President Barack Obama's choice to replace Scalia, Merrick Garland, was denied a hearing by the GOP-led Senate for nine months — have already suggested attempts to block Trump's nominee.

Hatch and Lee had held firm against hearings for Garland, saying that the high court's vacancy should be filled by America's choice to take over the White House and not a lame-duck president.

"Despite my personal affection for Merrick, I remain convinced that the right way for the Senate to do its job is to conduct a confirmation process after this contentious presidential election season is over," Hatch said then. "Doing so is the proper course to ensure a constructive process for a nominee and to preserve the integrity of the Supreme Court."

Garland's nomination was doomed after Trump won the White House and Republicans saw the opportunity for a GOP president to name a conservative to replace Scalia, a consistent jurist on the ideological right flank of the court. Most court observers see the high court now essentially split, with four justices on each side of the political spectrum.

If Gorsuch is confirmed, he would keep the court — as it was with Scalia — with a 5-4 split favoring conservatives on most issues.

Left- and right-wing groups are gearing up for what could be a robust fight over Gorsuch.

The showdown could lead to the end of a procedural hurdle known as a filibuster, which requires 60 Senate votes (through a procedure called cloture) to advance a Supreme Court nominee. Democrats tossed that rule three years ago after Republicans blocked several district and appeals court nominees but kept the threshold for the high court and legislation.

Hatch has been a staunch supporter of the filibuster, which is not technically a Senate rule but a longstanding tradition.

Gorsuch's record on religious-freedom issues is likely to be a talking point in his confirmation hearings, which will be held by the Senate Judiciary Committee, on which Lee sits with Hatch.

While on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, Gorsuch ruled for religious organizations in two cases brought against the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare) mandate that employers provide contraception coverage without a copay. In both cases, Gorsuch said the health care law violated the religious rights of the petitioners.

"The ACA's mandate requires them to violate their religious faith by forcing them to lend an impermissible degree of assistance to conduct their religion teaches to be gravely wrong," he wrote in the case.

Gorsuch, though, was not a part of the panel that ruled on Kitchen v. Herbert, the Utah case that allowed to stand federal Judge Robert J. Shelby's same-sex-marriage decision, legalizing gay unions throughout the court's jurisdiction. The Supreme Court later declined to review the case.

He also was not among the three 10th Circuit judges ruling in other prominent Utah cases: the "Sister Wives" filing, which called moot a lawsuit from a polygamist family; or the Weldon Angelos appeal, which upheld a 55-year prison sentence for a Utah man who carried a firearm while dealing pot. Angelos was released last fall after his term was reduced.

Gorsuch did offer a dissent in the Utah case of Summum v. Pleasant Grove City, which involved the Salt Lake City-based religion seeking to put its tribute to the "Seven Aphorisms" in the same park as a monument for the Christian faith's Ten Commandments. The judge said in a dissent that government-run parks have the right to decide which monuments will be displayed.

"Every park in the country that has accepted a VFW memorial is now a public forum for the erection of permanent fixed monuments; they must either remove the war memorials or brace themselves for an influx of clutter," Gorsuch wrote in a dissent with a fellow judge.

The Supreme Court later sided with Pleasant Grove, saying Summum cannot force the city to place a granite marker in the park.

Even in a victory lap of a high-court nomination that follows what Hatch is looking for, the senator took a stab at "liberal judges" in an op-ed in The Salt Lake Tribune.

"As many Utahns know, entrusting liberal judges to interpret our laws could threaten our very way of life," Hatch wrote. "With no regard for the values and freedoms we hold dear, these judges could drastically weaken laws protecting the sanctity of life, Second Amendment rights and religious liberty."

Hatch said that under such a liberal court, the Constitution would be subjected to a politically charged direction by "unelected judges."

"We cannot afford to put our most fundamental freedoms at risk," Hatch wrote, "by giving liberal judges free rein to distort our Constitution."

Twitter: @thomaswburr, @CourtneyLTanner