Conservatives cheer Donald Trump's pick of Neil Gorsuch to fill Supreme Court vacancy

While protesters railed against President Donald Trump's Tuesday night nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court, the conservative legal and political worlds rejoiced. 

Larry Levy, an officer of the Republican National Lawyers Association who spoke to Mic in a personal capacity, said Gorsuch has "distinguished himself as a scholar" and "demonstrated both an appropriate temperament and an encyclopedic knowledge of the law while sitting on the Tenth Circuit," along with maintaining "an unblemished record as an attorney and jurist."

Via email, Levy, who served as deputy counsel to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, elaborated: "I have a simple view: It is up to the president to select and if he selects a nominee who has the intelligence, the integrity, the knowledge and the temperament to sit on the Supreme Court, then the Senate should confirm."

In filling the Scalia vacancy, Levy, now with the firm Greenberg Traurig, predicted Gorsuch "will maintain the status quo, given the general tone of his published opinions."

Attorney Robin Weaver, who has worked with Republican presidential campaigns in the past, called Gorsuch "a terrific choice" in a phone interview Tuesday night.

"He has the right intellect and I think he's very respectful of the Constitution," said Weaver, who is also a member of the conservative Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Studies.

She noted that Gorsuch "clerked for two justices," Byron White and Anthony Kennedy, "who are certainly by all standards, if you were to characterize them politically quite moderate."

Overall, Weaver said of Gorsuch, "I respect his view that he doesn't let his personal political bias interfere with his [judicial] opinions, and that's really want you want in a judge."

Asked about the Gorsuch pick, J. Christian Adams, president and general counsel of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, said Trump's choice "should hearten any believer that the role of the judiciary is to consider what the law says — not what it should say."

Pointing to Gorsuch's reputation as a believer in "strict constructionism" of the type favored by Scalia, Adams, whose nonprofit group "seeks to protect the right to vote and preserve the Constitutional framework of American elections," said "the rule of law is on firmer ground tonight, and we will have Judge Gorsuch to thank for that."