WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Tom Udall made the following statement on President Trump's nomination of Federal Appeals Court Judge Neil Gorsuch to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court:
"I will thoroughly review the record of Judge Gorsuch and listen to the people of New Mexico before deciding how I will proceed with considering his nomination and how I will vote. However, I almost always disagreed with Justice Scalia's opinions and politics, and I believe the nation would be better off with a more mainstream, centrist justice in his seat. President Trump received nearly 3 million fewer votes than Secretary Clinton. He does not have a mandate to appoint an ultra-conservative justice to the nation's highest court.
"The first 11 days of President Trump's administration have made it chillingly clear how critical it is to have an independent judiciary that will evaluate matters on the facts and precedent, rather than a political agenda, and how fundamental the checks and balances in the Constitution are to our democracy. The Supreme Court will consider many weighty issues, and I will be carefully scrutinizing Judge Gorsuch's record for how he would rule on workers' rights, laws that keep our air and water clean, and preventing discrimination based on race, gender or sexual orientation, among other issues. But President Trump has emphasized that he was choosing a nominee who would carry out his intention to reverse Roe v. Wade. So I want to be clear where I stand: Roe v. Wade has been the law of the land for over 40 years, and I will fight any effort to reverse the law and take away a woman's right to make her own health care decisions."
