In what was as Trump’s most theatrical pick for the final rose since selecting Secretary of State, the President announced on Tuesday that Circuit Court Justice Neil Gorsuch is to replace the late Antonin Scalia. And a worthy pick Gorsuch is at that. The son of the first woman to head the Environmental Protection Agency, Gorsuch is a staunch Constitutional originalist and textualist. Here’s everything you need to know.

Gorsuch has no interest in using interpretation of the law as a form of social engineering

Although many have characterized Gorsuch as a typical conservative, Gorsuch’s disdain for manipulating Constitutional interpretation for political expedience departs wildly from conservative orthodoxy. In a piece 12 years ago for National Review, Gorsuch lamented the weaponization of the courts, saying:

“The politicization of the judiciary undermines the only real asset it has — its independence … Where trial-court and appeals-court nominees were once routinely confirmed on voice vote, they are now routinely subjected to ideological litmus tests, filibusters, and vicious interest-group attacks. It is a warning sign that our judiciary is losing its legitimacy when trial and circuit-court judges are viewed and treated as little more than politicians with robes.”

For anyone concerned with bigots like Kim Davis trying to weaponize a public position or proponents of Obamacare using the courts to ram down progressive social policy down the throats of private firms, this should come as great relief.

Gorsuch is, first and foremost, a defender of individual and religious liberty

Gorsuch wrote a key decision for the Hobby Lobby case. He valiantly defended the First Amendment’s protections that private firms and individuals need not pay for potentially (though scientifically improbably) abortive services such as the emergency contraceptive or some IUDs which make ectopic pregnancies possible. In his decision, Gorsuch wrote: “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.”

Gorsuch’s previous decisions also reflected a clear respect for Native and other non-monotheistic religions, so…

Progressives can take a breather — Gorsuch isn’t very anti-abortion

Despite his appearance as a mainstream conservative, Gorsuch will likely not choose Roe v. Wade as a hill to die on. In his book The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, Gorsuch does note: “All human beings are intrinsically valuable and the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong.”

However, he also says: “In Roe, the Court explained that, had it found the fetus to be a ‘person’ for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment, it could not have created a right to abortion because no constitutional basis exists for preferring the mother’s liberty interests over the child’s life.” Taken into consideration with his comments regarding the politicization of the U.S. legal system, Gorsuch seems likely to vote for the status quo.

Gorsuch will bring SCOTUS back to its roots and closer to true originalism

Just like Scalia, Gorsuch will reject any and all leaps of faith in interpreting the Constitution. In a tribute to Scalia, Gorsuch wrote:

“Judges should instead strive (if humanly and so imperfectly) to apply the law as it is, focusing backward, not forward, and looking to text, structure, and history to decide what a reasonable reader at the time of the events in question would have understood the law to be — not to decide cases based on their own moral convictions or the policy consequences they believe might serve society best.”

For perhaps just once, a ruling in the Trump administration will be based on the wisdom of our Founding Fathers and not on political or personal expedience.

On the SCOTUS front, Trump turned out not to be a Faustian bargain after all

At the nadir of Donald Trump’s popularity during the general election, the Republican establishment’s final Hail Mary prior to the Comey letter was to convince right-leaning and centrist Americans that Trump’s potential to select a conservative justice to replace Scalia was more important than the Access Hollywood tape, the hostility to free trade or the sexual assault allegations. Many conservatives refused, presuming this bargain to be Faustian due to Trump’s penchant for cutting deals and lack of interest in the Constitution. However, Trump’s selection of Gorsuch proved to be a real winner.

For the conservatives who held their noses and voted for Trump primarily because of SCOTUS, this seems basically like a slam dunk. — McKay Coppins (@mckaycoppins) February 1, 2017

Perhaps Trump knows how to put principle over nepotism after all

Trump’s other finalist, Thomas Hardiman, was qualified on paper in his own right, but his main qualification was really his friendship with Trump’s sister and Hardiman’s Third Circuit colleague Maryanne Trump Barry. Hardiman lacked the demonstrably eloquent and intelligent writings of Gorsuch to prove his Constitutional consistency. He also cannot be unequivocally labelled an originalist. The fact that Trump could overlook his prior connection to Hardiman in favor of principle emerges as a massive moral win for the President.

With his botched rollout of his visa/refugee/green card resident 90-day ban over the weekend, as well as reported infighting and insubordination in his inner circle, Trump’s choice of Gorsuch emerges as a strong beacon of hope for any conservative or American hoping that Trump’s baser instincts and tendencies could give way to a humility and respect for occupying the most significant and respected job on earth.

@tianathefirst