I'm Elizabeth Lattery and I'm Tiffany Bates.

And welcome to SCOTUS 101, where we break down what's happening at the Supreme Court, what the justices are up to, and other things related to our favorite branch of government. This week we're talking about how Justice Gorsuch is ruffling feathers, recent oral arguments, and we interview former Solicitor General Paul Clement. So Justice Gorsuch has been making a splash. He has been getting

some flack for a couple of speeches he gave over the last few weeks. One was in my home state at the

University of Kentucky College of Law, go wildcats, and he rankled many on the left for appearing

with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who of course is a Republican. Some people have

complained that this looked too much like a victory lap of sorts and said that it undermines his pledge at his confirmation hearing to be impartial and independent.

But in the speech, Gorsuch talked about how judges have a modest role to play in our democracy and defer to the political branches on policy issues.

He also talked about inheriting Justice Scalia's office and his, with that, his stuffed elk head, known as L.R.

Which I thought was kind of cute, this little anecdote he included. He says, the truth is, I'm delighted

to share the space with Leroy, because it turns out we share quite a lot in common. We're both

native Colorans.

We both received a rather shocking summons to Washington, D.C., and neither of us is ever going to forget Justice Scalia.

It sounds like no one really wanted Leroy, and that's how Gorsuch ended up with it.

It's huge.

Yeah, I haven't seen it in person, but I've seen pictures of it,

and it is a very, very large elkhead that is adorning the wall of Justice Gorsuch's office.

So anyway, he gave another speech. Tiffany, do you want to talk a little bit about that one?

Yeah, so Gorsuch gave another speech at the Trump Hotel. It was mostly focused on civics and civility.

He spoke to a conservative group that teaches civics, the Fund for American Studies, but he met about three dozen protesters when he

spoke there. So the Trump Hotel, as many of our listeners know, is involved in a few lawsuits.

Liberal groups have sued the president for violating the foreign emoluments clause, which is a provision in the Constitution that says the president can't receive payments from foreign governments unless Congress allows it.

These suits are kind of ridiculous.

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