U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday nominated Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court, Reuters reports.
Gorsuch, a 49-year-old native of Colorado, faces a potentially contentious confirmation battle in the U.S. Senate after Republicans last year refused to consider Democratic President Barack Obama's nominee to fill the vacancy caused by the February 2016 death of conservative justice Antonin Scalia.
Announcing the selection of Gorsuch at the White House flanked by the judge and his wife, Trump said his resume is "as good as it gets."
Trump added he hopes Republicans and Democrats can come together on this nomination for the good of the country.
"Judge Gorsuch has outstanding legal skills, a brilliant mind, tremendous disciple, and has earned bipartisan support," Trump said, according to Reuters.
"Depending on their age, a justice can be active for 50 years. And his or her decisions can last a century or more, and can often be permanent," the President added.
Gorsuch is a judge on the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and was appointed to that post by President George W. Bush in 2006.
Some of the Democrats in the Senate, which votes on whether to confirm judicial nominees, have already said they would seek to block whoever Trump nominates.
Gorsuch is considered a conservative intellectual and is known for backing religious rights, noted Reuters.
"I respect ... the fact that in our legal order it is for Congress and not the courts to write new laws," Gorsuch said on Tuesday night, adding, "It is the role of judges to apply, not alter, the work of the people's representatives. A judge who likes every outcome he reaches is very likely a bad judge, stretching for results he prefers rather than those the law demands."
A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the choice of Gorsuch was seen by the White House as a significant departure from Supreme Court nominations from the recent past, given that many justices have come from the eastern United States.
The official described Gorsuch as a mainstream judge who should easily be confirmed by the Senate. The official noted that the Senate confirmed him for his current judgeship in 2006 by voice vote with no one voting against him.
Trump got the opportunity to name Scalia's replacement only because the Republican-led Senate refused to consider Obama's nominee for the post, appeals court judge Merrick Garland.
Obama nominated Garland on March 16, a month after Scalia’s death, but Republican senators led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell denied Garland the customary confirmation hearings and vote.