NYT:

Judge Neil M. Gorsuch was confirmed by the Senate on Friday to become the 113th justice of the Supreme Court, capping a political brawl that lasted for more than a year and tested constitutional norms inside the Capitol’s fraying upper chamber. The development was a signal triumph for President Trump, whose campaign last year rested in large part on his pledge to appoint another committed conservative to succeed Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February 2016. However rocky the first months of his administration may have been, Mr. Trump now has a lasting legacy: Judge Gorsuch, 49, could serve on the court for 30 years or more.

If contemplating thirty years of Gorsuch opinions isn't torture enough... if looking at Mike Pence's smug fucking face isn't torture enough... if you really want to torture yourself... go read or reread this piece by Jeffrey Toobin in New Yorker from last October.

A liberal Court would, however, make a difference on the issue of voting rights. In 2013, in Shelby County v. Holder, the five conservatives on the Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, effectively eliminating the provision of the law which allowed the Justice Department to monitor changes in state and local laws to protect the rights of minorities. Many Republican-dominated states responded by imposing photo-identification requirements, limiting early voting and absentee voting, and closing polling places in minority neighborhoods. In the past year or so, federal judges have begun using other provisions of the Voting Rights Act to strike down these changes. In a current North Carolina case out of the Fourth Circuit, a liberal panel voided the state’s newly passed restrictions on voting. The decision was allowed to stand by the Supreme Court in a four-to-four tie. “A liberal majority on the Supreme Court could put the teeth back into the Voting Rights Act,” Karlan said.

The liberal wish list expands rapidly from there—limited only by the imaginations of law professors, advocates, and the Justices themselves. One possibility is that the Court might recognize a constitutional right to counsel in civil cases. (Currently, only criminal defendants are guaranteed legal representation.) In criminal law, the Court might adopt the idea, which Sotomayor has suggested, that the Constitution forbids incarcerating individuals who are too poor to pay fines. Several scholars have proposed a constitutional right to education, which might force increased funding for poor districts, or, even more speculatively, a right to a living wage....

For the first time in decades, there is now a realistic chance that the Supreme Court will become an engine of progressive change rather than an obstacle to it. “Liberals in the academy are now devising constitutional theories with an eye on the composition of the Court,” Justin Driver said. The hopes for a liberal Court will begin—or, just as certainly, end—with the results on Election Day.