With President Donald Trump waging war on the media, “the enemy of the people,” as he calls it, it’s critical for the senate judiciary committee to ask hard questions about Neil Gorsuch’s views on the First Amendment, writes Clay Calvert of the University of Florida, The Conversation, March 9, 2017. Besides queries about Citizens United ruling, senators should ask Gorsuch about the extent to which the First Amendment protects the public’s right to record police performing their jobs on the streets. Another would address his views on the balance between order and the rights to political speech in public spaces. And finally when does offensive speech lose its protection under the First Amendment.
Rob Hager, Nation of Change, March 9, 2017, takes a dim view of the Citizens United ruling that Gorsuch will likely support given that his judicial mentor wrote the SpeechNow.org (2010) decision that legitimized unlimited corporate spending in elections. Hager suggests four questions senate democrats should ask on strict constructionism and Citizens United.