Of President Donald Trump's four shortlisted Supreme Court possibles, Neil Gorsuch of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver would be closest to late jurist Antonin Scalia, someone whose beliefs the commander-in-chief wants echoed in his replacement, FiveThirtyEight.com says.
Trump, who will announce his pick to replace Scalia on Tuesday reportedly is considering four names: Gorsuch, Thomas Hardiman of the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia, and William Pryor and Raymond Kethledge, federal judges on the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit and Cincinnati-based 6th Circuit, respectively.
"Gorsuch was by far the most likely to invoke originalism — the notion that the Constitution is not a 'living' document and that its meaning was fixed when it was enacted — in his opinions, as Scalia had a habit of doing," the statistical analysis site concludes.
"Pryor, on the other hand, was the most likely to cite Scalia's writing. But Kethledge was the most likely to write non-majority opinions, in Scalia's fiery oppositional style.
"In the end, Gorsuch won the researchers' Scalia lookalike contest by a nose."
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