This evening, President Trump—after a day that felt more like the final episode of The Apprentice than a Supreme Court nomination vetting process—nominated 10th Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat.Judge Gorsuch—a Colorado native, Harvard Law graduate, and clerk for two Supreme Court Justices—is undoubtedly an elite legal mind and writer, fit to replace the legal lion that is Justice Scalia. Yet, back in July most legal observers would not have picked Judge Gorsuch to replace Justice Scalia. Putting aside the unlikely probability that Donald Trump would win the election, Judge Gorsuch was not on Trump’s list of eleven potential Supreme Court nominees he released in May 2016. Rather, Judge Gorsuch appeared on Trump’s addendum to the original list released in September 2016.

Was there anything that happened between May and September that elevated Judge Gorsuch’s status? Well yes. In August, Judge Gorsuch wrote a blistering concurring opinion criticizing Chevron deference in Gutierrez-Brizuela v. Lynch, a seemingly ordinary immigration case. In Chevron v. Natural Resource Defense Council, the Court held that the judiciary will defer to an agency’s interpretation of a statute if the statute is ambiguous. Judge Gorsuch sharply attacked Chevron deference, noting that it obliterates Separation of Powers principles.

Judge Gorsuch’s concurrence was met with wide praise in conservative legal circles and he rocketed up Court Watchers’ Supreme Court shortlist. Indeed, other jurists on Trump’s list earned wide praise for their concurring opinions in seemingly simple cases. For instance, Justice Don Willet of the Texas Supreme Court earned national recognition after writing a concurring opinion in Patel v. Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation that aggressively defended economic liberty—a subject that has long been dear to legal libertarians.

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