WITH degrees from Columbia, Harvard and Oxford, a trio of elite judicial clerkships, decade-long stints as both a Washington, DC lawyer and a circuit-court judge in Colorado, Neil Gorsuch, Donald Trump’s choice to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, is a pick straight from central casting. Despite his strong conservative credentials and adherence to the originalist principles of Mr Scalia, many left-leaning jurists and commentators have praised Mr Gorsuch for his intellect and judiciousness. But most Senate Democrats are lining up to oppose Mr Gorsuch’s nomination and may even stage a rare filibuster to complicate his path to the bench of America’s highest court. Why does this highly respected judge face a bruising confirmation fight?

Part of the explanation for Democrats’ resistance involves the types of decisions Mr Gorsuch is likely to make as a Supreme Court justice. The nominee has been friendlier to companies than to workers and consumers, and trumpets the rights of religious entities to exempt themselves from rules like Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate. He is not bothered by public displays of religion that liberals characterise as breaches of the wall between church and state. Mr Gorsuch also supports the constitutionality of capital punishment and, based on his 2006 book, “The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia”, may prove to be no friend to abortion rights. “All human beings are intrinsically valuable”, he wrote, “and the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong”.

Mr Gorsuch would restore the long-standing conservative majority that dissolved one year ago into an ideologically balanced eight-person court following Mr Scalia’s death. But Democrats have another reason to fight his nomination: payback. Barack Obama’s choice to fill Mr Scalia’s seat, Merrick Garland, chief judge of the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, was, like Mr Gorsuch, unquestionably qualified. He, too, garnered bipartisan support when he was nominated to be an appellate judge. When Mr Obama was considering replacements for Justice John Paul Stevens, who retired at the age of 90 in 2010, Orrin Hatch, a Republican senator, praised Mr Garland as “a consensus nominee” who could win wide support. Yet when Mr Obama tapped him in 2016, Senate Republicans refused to consider Mr Garland, much less give him a vote. Arguing that the next president should pick Mr Scalia’s replacement, they blockaded the ninth seat throughout the final year of Mr Obama’s presidency. Mr Gorsuch seems to understand the unprecedented obstruction that cleared a path for his nomination: after being tapped by Mr Trump, the first call he made was to Merrick Garland.

In light of the unique circumstances leading up to Mr Gorsuch’s nomination, Senate Democrats are not bowing down to Mr Trump’s Supreme Court pick—despite their adversaries’ 52-48 majority. It is unclear, though, how much of a fight they will put up. Talk of a filibuster—whereby a vote is delayed until 60 senators vote to invoke “cloture” and close debate—has softened in recent days. The Democratic minority leader, Chuck Schumer, now says that “nominees to our nation’s highest court must demonstrate that they are mainstream and independent enough to earn the support of at least 60 senators from both parties”, noting that Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, Barack Obama’s first two nominees, both cleared that threshold. But a filibuster is risky. It would be embarrassing to attempt if eight Democrats end up supporting Mr Gorsuch. And if Democrats force Republicans to exercise the “nuclear option” and eliminate the Senate rule permitting filibusters, the tactic won’t be around for the next Supreme Court fight.