美参议院将为确认最高法院大法官人选听证

The U.S. Senate is holding its first confirmation hearing Monday for Neil Gorsuch, the judge President Donald Trump has nominated to fill a long vacancy on the Supreme Court.

The court has been one short of its nine justices since Antonin Scalia died in February 2016. Former President Barack Obama's nominee to fill the vacancy, Judge Merrick Garland, never got a confirmation hearing by the Republican-led Senate.

Gorsuch and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are scheduled to give opening statements Monday. Gorsuch will then face questions Tuesday and Wednesday, and the hearings are due to end Thursday with comments from outsiders.

Republicans hold a 52-48 majority in the Senate. Democrats could attempt to block the Gorsuch nomination with a tactic known as the filibuster, which would require 60 votes to approve the new justice. However, it is not clear if they would do so, and Republicans could change Senate rules to require only a simple-majority vote for confirmation.

If confirmed, Gorsuch would restore the 5-4 conservative majority on the court that was in place before Scalia's death.

Gorsuch has been through the confirmation process before. In 2006, the Senate confirmed him to a seat on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Before that, he was a high-ranking official in the Justice Department under President George W. Bush. He also spent time in the early 1990s as clerk for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.

美国参议院星期一将为确认川普总统的最高法院大法官人选尼尔·戈萨奇举行第一次听证会。这个职位已经长期空缺。

自2016年2月安东宁・斯卡利亚去世以来，最高法院的9名大法官便空缺一名。前总统奥巴马曾提名梅里克·加兰法官填补空缺，但是共和党人领导的参议院一直没有召开确认听证会。

戈萨奇和参议院司法委员会成员定于星期一进行开场陈述。之后戈萨奇将在周二和周三面临提问，听证会将于周四结束并征求外部人士的意见。

共和党在参议院中拥有52-48的多数席位。民主党人可能会试图以被称为“阻挠议程”的策略阻止戈萨奇提名，这就需要60票来批准新任大法官的确认。然而，不清楚民主党人是否会这样做，共和党人也可以改变参议院的规则，只需要简单多数的表决确认。

如果得到确认，戈萨奇的加入会恢复在斯卡利亚去世之前最高法院5比4的保守派多数。

戈萨奇在2006年曾经经历过确认程序，当时参议院批准他为美国第十巡回上诉法院的法官。在此之前，他是布什总统的司法部高级官员。上世纪90年代初他还曾担任最高法院法官安东尼·肯尼迪的书记员。