Neil Gorsuch on Textualism

Neil Gorsuch firmly advocates for textualism, a judicial philosophy asserting that a statute's meaning is derived from its ordinary public meaning at the time of its enactment, demanding fidelity to the written text above all else. He views this method as essential for being a faithful agent of the legislature, ensuring judicial restraint, and promoting the rule of law through predictable and objective interpretations. Gorsuch has explicitly stated that when the plain terms of a statute provide one answer, extratextual considerations like legislative history are irrelevant.

This commitment has been particularly evident in controversial cases where Gorsuch has employed a method of dissecting phrases by stringing together the precedent-defined meanings of individual words, a technique described as a 'precedent-based-semantics approach'. While this approach aligns with his focus on text, it has led to internal debates among textualists, with some suggesting his methodology in cases like Bostock v. Clayton Cnty. leaned toward a literalism that overlooks the meaning of the phrase as a whole, which relies more on context. Nonetheless, Gorsuch actively uses textualism as his primary framework for statutory interpretation.