Neil Gorsuch

During the New Deal, liberals recognized that the ballot box and elected branches are generally the appropriate engines of social reform, and liberals used both to spectacular effect - instituting profound social changes that remain deeply ingrained in society today.

We have all witnessed, as well, family, friends, or medical workers who have chosen to provide years of loving care to persons who may suffer from Alzheimer's or other debilitating illnesses precisely because they are human persons, not because doing so instrumentally advances some other hidden objective.

All human beings are intrinsically valuable, and the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong.

It would be a very good thing for all involved - the country, an independent judiciary, and the Left itself - if liberals take a page from David von Drehle and their own judges of the New Deal era, kick their addiction to constitutional litigation, and return to their New Deal roots of trying to win elections rather than lawsuits.

For the last decade, I've worked as a federal judge in a court that spans six Western states, serving about 20 percent of the continental United States and about 18 million people. The men and women I've worked with at every level in our circuit are an inspiration to me.

I respect, too, the fact that in our legal order it is for Congress and not the courts to write new laws. It is the role of judges to apply, not alter, the work of the people's representatives.

Of course, the Supreme Court's work is vital not just to a region of the country, but to the whole, vital to the protection of the people's liberties under law and to the continuity of our Constitution, the greatest charter of human liberty the world has ever known.