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House Democrats lost seats in the 2016 elections. They're looking to narrow their 24-seat deficit in 2018, when the president's party typically loses seats in his first midterm elections. David Goldman/AP hide caption

House Democrats lost seats in the 2016 elections. They're looking to narrow their 24-seat deficit in 2018, when the president's party typically loses seats in his first midterm elections.

National Democrats are investing more resources in an upcoming Georgia special election, hoping new research gained from focus groups could not only pull off an upset in the suburban Atlanta district, but also give them clues to how they can best put the House in play next year.

According to details first shared with NPR, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is sponsoring three focus groups in the district over the coming week aimed at better discovering how to target younger voters, African-American voters and swing voters many of whom have not been reliable in turning out in midterm elections.

"Understanding that people are more than numbers, we have made a strategic decision to invest in qualitative research that will not only help up us in Georgia's 6th District, but also inform our message to key groups of voters ahead of 2018," said DCCC spokesman Tyler Law. "In order to learn lessons from last cycle and maximize our gains on an expanded battlefield, we must listen to real people and see what drives them to vote, and these focus groups are an important early step towards achieving that goal."

Democrats believe they have a unique opportunity in the race to succeed now-Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. The suburban Georgia district voted for Mitt Romney by 24 points four years ago; President Trump carried it by just over 1 point last November.

Places like the 6th District, where Trump drastically underperformed past Republicans, are the key to Democrats taking back the House, where they already have limited options due to a gerrymandered map. They need 24 seats to win back control, and there are 23 districts that voted for Hillary Clinton that are currently held by Republicans. They'll be on defense in 12 districts with Democratic incumbents that were won by Trump.

The DCCC and other progressive groups have thrown their weight behind Democrat Jon Ossoff, a 30-year-old documentary filmmaker and former congressional staffer, ahead of the upcoming April 18 all-party "jungle" primary. There are 18 candidates running, and the top two finishers regardless of party will advance to a June 20 runoff if no one gets a majority.

Ossoff has already raised upwards of $2 million for his bid, and his campaign is also pitching in funds for two of the focus groups. The DCCC previously sent nine staffers to help with the race as well.

Special elections are not always accurate harbingers of future electoral success, but the Georgia contest gives Democrats a potential early bellwether of whether backlash to Trump can hurt Republicans at the ballot box. Ossoff's own ads have tried to paint himself as more of a centrist, but also have a clear anti-Trump message.

Democrats' first focus group, conducted Tuesday evening by Anzalone Liszt Grove (ALG) Research, was targeted at Romney voters between the ages of 55 and 74 who flipped to Clinton. Older voters typically turn out more reliably in presidential years, and Democrats will need to persuade more like them to vote for their candidates in November 2018. Among the questions Democrats were looking to answer is how they feel about Trump, whether those feelings about the president can trickle down to a GOP congressional nominee and whether they can persuade voters to elect a Democratic House to be a check and balance on a Trump White House.

The second focus group, set for Wednesday evening and also conducted by ALG, will survey younger voters between the ages of 18 and 45 on how Democrats can keep them engaged and motivated through the midterms.

The final focus group, this one targeting black voters, will be conducted next week by Cornell Belcher, a longtime Democratic pollster who worked on both of President Barack Obama's campaigns. The 6th District is about 12 percent African-American, but that number has nearly doubled in the past decade as the Atlanta suburbs have grown and diversified.

Democrats will need those reliably Democratic voters to turn out not just for Ossoff, but in November 2018, too, and they'll be looking to find how motivated they are to send a message to Trump with their vote and how they can be persuaded to get to the polls.

Many Democrats privately acknowledge that the district is still an uphill climb, though that could depend on which Republican advances to the June runoff. Top GOP hopefuls include former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, who has run twice before statewide and in some comments has looked to put some daylight between herself and the president. Johns Creek City Councilman Bob Gray just picked up the endorsement of the Club for Growth on Monday and has touted that he would be a "willing partner" to Trump.

National Republicans have dismissed the idea that running an anti-Trump strategy will work, saying Democrats tried and failed with that message last fall. But there are signs the party is taking Ossoff and his momentum seriously. The Congressional Leadership Fund, a superPAC aligned with GOP leadership, launched a $1.1 million buy against Ossoff. Its ad campaign began with an ad featuring footage of Ossoff dressed as Han Solo for a Star Wars-themed parody his college a cappella group did about drinking on campus.

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Democrats Eye Georgia Special Election To Test 2018 Messages - NPR

In sports, spectators generally watch the ball. In politics, they generally watch the people who govern. Often, however, important dynamics occur offstage, as parties out of power remake themselves in exile.

Thats likely happening to the Democrats. Quietly, in the shadow of Trump, the party will move left. The Democrats will never nominate another presidential candidate as friendly as Hillary Clinton was to a mainstream group like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Some of the reasons have nothing to do with Donald Trump. Theyre simply demographic.

Millennials are less sympathetic to Israel than their elders. African Americans and Latinos are less sympathetic than whites. The religiously unaffiliated are less sympathetic than are regular churchgoers. And the young, the secular and racial minorities are all growing as a share of the American population and, especially, of the Democratic electorate. This past January, for the first time since the Pew Research Center began asking the question in 2000, Democrats were as likely to identify with the Palestinians as with Israel.

But while this shift left would likely have happened anyway, Trump will accelerate it. First, hell accelerate it by giving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a freer hand to do things that alienate American progressives, like building settlements, silencing dissent and perhaps even annexing parts of the West Bank.

If Israel and Hamas again go to war, Trump will place fewer restraints on Netanyahus military campaign than Hillary Clinton would have, and that will alienate progressives, too. Jewish Voice for Peace, which represents the left edge of the American Israel debate, saw dramatic membership growth during Israels 2014 war with Gaza. Another Gaza war which Trumps election makes more likely will boost it further.

Even more important, Trump will become the prism through which Democrats see Netanyahu. Because most Americans know little about foreign leaders, they often see them as analogues to the American politicians they know well. Why did American progressives develop such a passionate hostility toward South Africas apartheid leaders? Because those leaders resembled the politicians of the segregated South. Why has Vladimir Putins popularity dipped among Democrats and risen dramatically among Republicans since 2016? Because some Americans now see Putin as a Russian version of Trump.

Thats especially true for Netanyahu. His English is so good, and hes so intimately involved in American politics, that to many Americans he simply sounds like another Republican.

Netanyahu is a big part of the reason Democrats grew more critical of Israel during the Obama years. His fear-mongering, bellicose rhetoric about Iran reminded them of the Bush administrations fear-mongering, bellicose rhetoric in the run-up to the war in Iraq. When he spoke, they heard Dick Cheney.

Now, when Netanyahu speaks, Democrats hear Donald Trump. When Democrats read about Israel not allowing critics into the country, theyll think of Trumps travel ban. When they hear about Netanyahus threats to freedom of the press, theyll think of Trumps attacks on journalists. When Netanyahu claims his wall stopped illegal immigration, theyll think of Trumps proposed wall along the border with Mexico.

Many Democrats already saw Israel as another red state. Now unless Israel undergoes some unexpected political shift theyll view Netanyahus Israel as authoritarian, hyper-nationalist, nativist and anti-Muslim, everything they fear Trump will make the United States. Netanyahus failure to publicly press Trump to speak out against rising American anti-Semitism will only compound that view.

If you squint, you can already see evidence of the Democrats move left. Although Keith Ellison, one of the most vocal proponents of Palestinian rights in Congress, lost his bid to chair the Democratic National Committee in February, he came closer than he would have a few years ago. Despite a fierce attack from the Jewish right, he won the endorsementsof the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren and the Senate Minority leader,Charles Schumer, and received the deputy chairman as a consolation prize. Nine of the 10 Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee including New Jerseys Cory Booker, a darling of the American Jewish establishment voted against David Friedman, Trumps pro-settlements nominee to be ambassador to Israel.

And in February, at the J Street Conference, Bernie Sanders went further in his criticism of Israel than he had during the presidential campaign even hinting that if the two-state solution dies, he might embrace one equal state for [both Palestinians and Jews.

In the conclusion to his speech, Sanders explicitly linked the struggle against Netanyahu to the struggle against Trump. To my Israeli friends here with us today, he declared, we share many of the same challenges. In both our countries we see the rise of a politics of bigotry and intolerance and resentment. We must meet these challenges together.

When Sanders finished, the crowd roared. It was a sign of things to come.

Peter Beinart is a Forward senior columnist and contributing editor. Dont miss the latest episodes of Fault Lines, his new podcast with Daniel Gordis.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward.

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Donald Netanyahu: Many Democrats See The Two Leaders As One - Forward

In the nearly two months since President Donald Trump was sworn in, a self-described Resistance has emerged at mass marches, energetic protests and raucous town halls from coast to coast. The town halls in particular have invited a substantial amount of speculation: Will the Resistance become the lefts counterpart to the right-wing Tea Party?

Its not hard to imagine why Democrats might welcome a populist movement of their own, given the successes the GOP has enjoyed since the Tea Party took shape in 2009. Over eight years, the movement helped Republicans gain majorities in state legislatures, win both houses of Congress and lay the groundwork for Trumps ascent to the White House.

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But for the sake of the country, I certainly hope the Resistance isnt a liberal Tea Party lookalike. As a Republican in the moderate mainstream tradition of my party, Ive been aghast at the distorting effect of the Tea Partys influence, on both the GOP and American democracy. If the Republican and Democratic parties become dominated by angry, dogmatic populist movements, the political center will die, with horrific consequences for our democratic system and even our ability to hold together as a nation.

In many respects, the Tea Party was an admirable example of democracy in action and gave many citizens their first experience with political engagement. But as a whole, the Tea Party became the extremist tail that wagged the Republican Party dog. Participants in the movement tended toward ideological rigidity and absolutist demands, bringing to the fore far-right ideas that had long been resisted by principled conservatives. Paranoid conspiracy theories once peddled by the likes of the John Birch Society became commonplace, with President Barack Obama portrayed as a foreign-born dictator ravaging the Constitution, rather than simply a Democratic president with whom we respectfully disagreed. The entire GOP was pushed toward obstruction and hyperpartisanship. Expertise and experience became liabilities, compromise the deadliest sin. The Tea Party claimed the mantle of fiscal conservatism, but had no real strategy to reduce the deficit beyond cutting programs for Democratic constituencies while preserving programs for Republican voters, all while avoiding any serious reforms to defense spending or middle-class entitlements. (If you think that sounds a lot like Trumps proposed budget, youre right.)

In Congress, the Tea Party gave rise to the House Freedom Caucus, which devoted most of its energies to overthrowing its own partys leaders and undermining the legislative branch as an institution. The activists populist fervor and disdain for negotiation led directly to the 2013 government shutdown, as hard-liners in Congress attempted to force concessions from the administration that they couldnt achieve through the legislative process. Perhaps more troublingly, the Tea Party weakened the Republicans capacity to govern. The constant threat of primary challenges intimidated GOP legislators into taking extreme ideological positions that had no basis in reality or the needs of their constituents. Problem-solvers were marginalized or purged. Terrible threats to the countrythe opioid epidemic, rising income inequality, the collapse of work, stagnating social mobility, terrorism and global instabilitywere ignored while Congress passed base-pleasing motions that the president predictably vetoed.

The hour is too late for more of this pointless and irresponsible Kabuki theater. And yet many Democrats seem eager to stage a drama of their own, following exactly the same script.

***

Its too soon to say if the Resistance will develop into a left-wing Tea Party with lasting political influence. Perhaps it will instead be like the Occupy Wall Street movement and implode after a few months, done in by a suspicion of leadership and the lack of a coherent agenda. But for now, the Resistance seems to be not only retracing the Tea Partys trajectory, but adopting its techniques.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in their tactic of showing up, organized and en masse, to town-hall meetings held by elected officials from the opposing party. Sometimes those meetings take the form of constructive dialogues, while at other times theyre more akin to Maoist-style denunciations. Where will this lead, given the lefts growing appetite for violent suppression of free speech, as seen in places like Middlebury College?

For now, many Resistance participants, like the Tea Partys novice activists before them, are following the conventional track of citizen engagement by building a more formal organized structure, holding meetings, writing to and calling their representatives, and running for unglamorous but critical jobs as convention delegates and precinct chairs in the Democratic Party.

Thats not to say that the Resistance and the Democratic Party are working in tandem. Indeed, whats happening carries real risks for the Democrats: In yet another parallel with the Tea Party, the Resistance is fighting against its own partys leaders as well as the opposing party. We saw this in the replay of the Bernie Sanders-Hillary Clinton 2016 primary spat in this years race for chair of the Democratic National Committee, with Keith Ellison playing the role of Sanders and Tom Perez standing in for Hillary Clinton.

Just as the Tea Party pushed the GOP toward obstructionism and ideological rigidity, the Resistance is starting to force the Democratic Party toward its extremes and away from long-held norms of bipartisan give-and-take. Resisters threaten Democratic politicians with terrible retribution if they vote in favor of any of Trumps nominees or major Republican legislation, regardless of merit. As a result, Democratic officeholders have less and less to say about the value of compromise, seemingly fearing that anything they say will be seen as normalizing and legitimizing the Trump presidency.

Odds are growing that 2018 will see a rash of Resistance-driven primary challenges to centrist Democrats. Privately, the partys professionals dread a repeat of what has happened on the Republican side, when successful center-leaning politicians lost low-turnout primaries to fringe candidates who went on to crashing defeat in the general election. (Think of Indiana Senator Richard Lugar losing the 2012 primary to Richard Mourdock, who then went on to lose to Democrat Joe Donnelly.) Its not hard to imagine an Elizabeth Warren-style challenger upsetting Sen. Joe Manchin in the West Virginia Democratic primary in 2018, but that liberal victor would face long odds in a state where Trump took nearly 70 percent of the vote in 2016. The impulse to primary moderates from your own party is real and has a certain appeal, but those victories are often Pyrrhic, forfeiting long-term success for short-lasting gratification.

At the moment, Democrats are so far down in the minority in both the House and Senate that many grass-roots activists would welcome whatever Faustian trade-offs would accompany a liberal Tea Party. Its uncertain, however, whether the Resistance can succeed on the scale of the Tea Party-driven Republican victories in the past several elections, for reasons that have a lot to do with Americas political geography.

The Tea Party movement prevailed because it targeted vulnerable Democratic officeholders in areas that already leaned conservative. After the 2010 elections, membership in the congressional Blue Dog Coalition, made up mostly of centrist Democrats from Sunbelt states, dropped by half; after 2012, it halved again. Rural and heartland America accounted for most of the nearly 1,000 state legislative seats, 30 state legislative chambers and dozen governorships the Democrats have lost since Obama took office. Its possible that Democrats might try to retake the Blue Dogs old territory in 2018 and 2020, but the centrist Democratic candidates who could succeed in those districts will not run if the national party moves sharply to the left and the Resistance emulates the Tea Partys animus toward moderates.

Far more likely is that Democrats will concentrate most of their efforts against comparatively moderate, governing-minded Republicans in purple states and swing districts, just as they did in 2016. Quite a few of the Republicans who represent politically diverse states and highly educated suburban districts are likely to go down in flames if Trumps ratings continue to decline. But these are also the last remaining Republicans who might be counted on to cooperate with the opposing party, hold the executive branch accountable and keep the GOP from overreaching on issues ranging from the Affordable Care Act to tax reform. If theyre forced out, the Republican Party will become even more extreme, and our governing system will become even more dysfunctional.

If the Resistance is legitimately troubled by President Trump and his implications for American democracy, they could do something more constructive and creativeand a successful model for it already exists.

Each election cycle in the early 1970s, the environmental movement targeted a dirty dozen of the worst polluters in Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, and defeated most of them. Its not impossible to imagine a movement today that would seek to remove the members who are doing the greatest damage to Congress and effective governance. Such a campaign would do a lot more good for the country than the current dynamic, in which moderates from both parties are locked in a death struggle while extremists go unchallenged in safe seats.

But Im afraid thats unlikely to happen. Scratch the assumptions of many Tea Party and Resistance participants and youre likely to find a belief that nothing good can be accomplished in politics unless the correct side controls all branches of government and can run roughshod over its opponents. Many Republicans are now rejoicing as Trump and Congress work to repeal every part of Obamas legacy and force their agenda on Blue America, while many Democrats dream of someday reversing every Republican action and imposing their own maximalist program on Red America.

What both sides overlook is that the only enduring causes in American life are those that have at least some degree of bipartisan legitimacy, and the only government actions that achieve lasting success are those involving popular persuasion and outreach, cross-party cooperation and compromise. That was true of the creation of Social Security, the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the birth of Medicare and Medicaid, the Clean Air Act in 1970even Ronald Reagans 1986 tax reform. Politics-as-warfare can achieve no lasting victories; in the long term, its only accomplishments will be to break apart the country and accelerate Americas downfall as a global power.

Political movements of left and right alike stand in a long tradition dating back to the American Revolution of giving ordinary citizens a voice in the counsels of their leaders and representatives. But the Founding Fathers also dreaded the consequences of unchecked popular passions, the overthrow of moderation and the erosion of mutual tolerance and respect among Americans of differing views. The coming years may witness the realization of their worst fears.

Geoffrey Kabaservice is the author of Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party.

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Are Democrats Becoming Extremists? - POLITICO Magazine

The last two groups are a direct result of the opportunity provided by Monday's non-partisan evaluation of the GOP's repeal and replace Obamacare plan, which shows seniors and the poor suffering the most, including potentially devastating Medicaid cuts that could cause headaches for Republican governors.

The trio of targets will make up the thrust of Democrats 2018 health care argument, according to CNN interviews with about a half-dozen Democratic campaign strategists and aides.

It is still early in the process and Democrats have yet to recruit candidates in most of the targeted races. But Democrats are cheered by a series of polls and focus groups showing health care animates swing voters to their side more than other issues, including White House initiatives such as building a costly Southern border wall and the travel ban initiated against six Muslim majority countries.

The Republican health care plan, which has White House support, received a damaging score from the Congressional Budget Office Monday. The report found 14 million more people would be uninsured by 14 million in 2018 and 24 million by 2026.

Most damaging in the eyes of some Democrats is the finding there would be a steep premium hike for older people with lower incomes. A 64-year-old making $26,500 would pay $1,700 for coverage in 2026 under Obamacare, thanks to its subsidies -- but under the GOP plan, that person would get hit with a annual premium bill of $14,600.

The GOP proposal would cut also Medicaid, a federal program administrated by states that provides health coverage to low-income Americans, by $880 billion over 10 years.

"I am not trying to be too cute here, but House Republicans have truly constructed a bill that offends every important group," said Tyler Law, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "I do think it is fair to take it to the bank that we will be talking about this through 2018."

The prospective messaging has also infused previously downbeat Democrats with a boost of confidence in the wake of their disappointing 2016, which left them out of power in both the House and Senate and Republican Donald Trump in the White House.

In the House, there are eight Republicans in congressional districts that Clinton won who also have already cast preliminary votes of approval for the GOP health plan because of the committees they sit on.

Reps. Leonard Lance in New Jersey, Ryan Costello in Pennsylvania, Mimi Walters in California, Erik Paulsen in Minnesota, Peter Roskam in Illinois, Carlos Curbelo in Florida, Pat Meehan in Pennsylvania and Dave Reichert in Washington each sit on either the Energy and Commerce Committee or the Ways and Means Committee and voted last week to back the bill.

Though most of these races don't yet have Democratic candidates, the DCCC has already begun working with local politicians to stress the need to push voters over the health care votes.

"From a purely political standpoint, you are talking about a lot of vulnerable Republicans who have already voted on it," said one operative tasked with winning back the House,

Already, several Republicans are feeling the pressure over health care.

Lance, one of the vulnerable Republicans who represents a district Clinton won in northern New Jersey, told reporters Tuesday that the Republican bill wouldn't make it through the Senate and wouldn't be worth supporting.

"I do not want to vote on a bill that has no chance of passing over in the Senate," Lance said.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican from a district Clinton won, also announced on Tuesday that she wouldn't back the Republican bill.

"I plan to vote NO on the current #AHCA bill. As written the plan leaves too many from my #SoFla district uninsured," she tweeted.

National Republicans heading up the midterm campaigning say the targeted members, some of whom have long represented Democratic districts with a localized-style of Republicanism, will be just fine.

"These particular members of Congress were in the cross hairs this past cycle ... these guys have been targeted by the DCCC right along and they have proven they can separate themselves," said Jesse Hunt, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

"We have run on repealing and replacing Obamacare. We have won on that issue. All that Republicans are doing right now are fulfilling a promise they made to the American people," he added.

On the Senate side, Democrats told CNN they see opportunities to message directly to older voters in states with 2018 elections such as Arizona, Nevada, Florida and Maine.

"This is moving from theoretical conversations about what the plan would potentially do, to a very real impact on seniors where they could be forced to pay up to five times for care," said one Democratic aide tasked with winning back the Senate.

The aide added Democrats expect the predicted rate hikes could be felt on seniors right before voters go to the polls making the message resonate even more.

Republican Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Dean Heller of Nevada are of particular interest to Democrats. Both their states have a sizable number of senior voters, and were fertile ground for Clinton -- she won Nevada and lost Arizona by just 4%. Voters 65 and older backed Trump over Clinton nationally by 7% in 2016, according to exit polls. In Arizona, that number was a more stark -- 13%. But in Nevada, Clinton won seniors by 5%.

Florida and Maine, meanwhile, are two of the oldest states by population.

Democrats are hopeful that concerted messaging will mean their candidates -- both Senate and House -- could turn out seniors, a reliable voting bloc even in off-year elections. On average, voters over 65 make up close to 20% of voters in midterms, more than their share in presidential elections.

Then there are states that expanded Medicaid, which, under the Republican plan, would see their funding go down due to both cuts and changes in how federal monies will be allocated.

Democrats plan to push Republican candidates in Nevada, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Ohio, which both expanded Medicaid and have 2018 Senate races.

The GOP plan, according to experts, would likely endanger Medicaid funding for issues like drug treatment and mental health rehabilitation.

Richard G. Frank, a professor of Health Economics at Harvard University, told CNN that since the new plan would allow states more flexibility but pare back their funding, states are forced to choose to continue the existing services at their own expense or make cuts.

"Historically, states have been loath to cover substance abuse treatment," he said.

Some Republicans have already expressed concerns over this aspect of the plan.

"Don't kill Medicaid expansion," Ohio Gov. John Kasich said earlier this month. "Here's what we're talking about: If you're drug addicted, if you're mentally ill, you have to consistently see the doctor. From what I see in this House bill, the resources are not there."

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told CNN Tuesday that stripping Medicaid funding from states will be a top issue in 2018.

"The Republican plan is one broken promise after another, forcing older Americans to pay as much as five times more for their care and stripping Medicaid funding that states from West Virginia to Arizona use to fight the opioid epidemic," Van Hollen said. "In every Senate campaign, we will make sure voters know that Republicans will make you pay more for less care so that the insurance companies and rich can profit."

The focus on health care, especially in states with vulnerable Republicans, also fits with the message testing Democrats are already doing for the 2018 midterms.

Groups -- including American Bridge, the liberal super PAC and opposition research firm led by longtime Clinton adviser David Brock -- have found out through polls and focus groups that voters who backed Obama in 2008 but Trump in 2016 are more swayed by Trump's plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act than they are by other issues.

Longtime Democratic operative James Carville bluntly told donors at an American Bridge summit in Florida earlier this year: "The mover on health care loses; to do something is to lose."

That logic accounts for the backlash Democrats felt after passing Obamacare and the pain they hope to inflict on Republicans in 2018.

"The Republican plan to repeal Obamacare is a disaster that is going to be a political liability in 2018," Brock said. "Bigly."

This story has been updated.

CNN's MJ Lee contributed to this report.

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How Democrats will use the GOP health care bill against Republicans in 2018 - CNN

Im not sure who decided that the Democratic critique of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch would be that he doesnt side with the little guy. Its a truly terrible idea. Like other liberals, Im still shocked and upset that Judge Merrick Garland never got the vote he deserved after his nomination by President Barack Obama, and Id rather have a progressive justice join the court. But the thing is, siding with workers against employers isnt a jurisprudential position. Its a political stance. And justices -- including progressive justices -- shouldnt decide cases based on who the parties are. They should decide cases based on their beliefs about how the law should be interpreted.

Lets start at the beginning. Way back in the beginning, in fact. The Hebrew Bible, which sides with the little guy a great deal, has something to say about parties to a case. Specifically, Deuteronomy 16:19 says judges shouldnt respect persons, which is the King James Versions translation of the Hebrew phrase that literally means recognize faces. Justice -- which is mentioned in the famous next verse (Justice, justice shalt thou pursue) -- requires judges to decide cases under the law, not based on preferences for individuals.

QuickTake U.S. Supreme Court Nominee Neil Gorsuch

If the Bible doesnt convince you, consider the whole point of a rule-of-law system: It establishes rules so that people can be confident in advance of how decisions are made. That creates regularity and predictability. And in the long run, it protects the little guy a lot better than a system rigged to favor one side, because such systems will naturally tend to favor the rich and powerful, not the poor and downtrodden.

Assuring that the rule of law is followed is in fact the specific role of appellate judges, like Gorsuch. Trial judges find facts and also interpret the law. Appellate judges arent supposed to revisit facts determined by the trial court. Theyre supposed to make sure the legal rules are applied consistently.

Looking at the Gorsuch decisions that the Democrats have made into their touchstones demonstrates how misguided their strategy is, legally speaking.

One of them, TransAm Trucking Inc. v. Administrative Review Board, involved the agencys determination that a trucker had been wrongfully fired after refusing to stay with his truck on a cold winter night as directed by a dispatcher. The majority of the panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit upheld the agency on highly creative grounds. The relevant law said the driver couldnt be fired for refusing to operate his vehicle under the conditions set by the trucking company. The judges held that the driver, who drove away in his cab, had arguably refused to operate the vehicle -- because the term operate in the statute was vague.

Gorsuch dissented. The panel had relied on the so-called Chevron doctrine, a special bugaboo of Gorsuchs, in which judges defer to agencies interpretations of unclear laws. Gorsuch said the law wasnt ambiguous as required by Chevron, because the driver was fired for failing to stay with his truck full of cargo, not for driving away.

Im not sure Gorsuch was right -- but his view was perfectly defensible, and it certainly didnt seem to be driven by dislike of the driver. Rather, Gorsuch followed his preference for reading the law on its own terms and against Chevron. Theres nothing troubling about it.

Another case that progressives are citing involved denial of state funding for placement of an autistic child under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Gorsuch wrote the opinion, reasoning that under binding Supreme Court precedent, the boys existing school placement was legally sufficient because he was making progress.

As it happens, the law regarding the proper standard to apply in such cases is uncertain -- so much so that the Supreme Court is considering it this term. The 10th Circuit standard, which Gorsuch helped craft, may be too narrow; I certainly think so. But its a plausible reading of the existing precedent.

It would be nice if Gorsuch had pushed for a more inclusive, and arguably more progressive, standard. But it doesnt show a lack of sympathy for autistic kids -- especially when you consider that wealthier parents are better placed to go to court and challenge state determinations of what resources should go to their disabled kids.

The last case being mentioned, Hwang v. Kansas State University, raised the question of whether its a reasonable accommodation under the Rehabilitation Act to stay out of work beyond the term of six months leave granted by the employer. Grace Hwang, a professor at KSU, got the universitys maximum of six months leave as she underwent cancer treatment. She was about to return to work when a flu epidemic hit the campus. Concerned that she might get sick while immunocompromised, she requested further leave as a reasonable accommodation.

Gorsuch wrote for a unanimous panel that staying out of work beyond the six months wasnt an accommodation at all, because accommodation requires you to do the job, and not coming to work isnt doing the job. He reasoned that she could go on disability leave. As he put it, Ms. Hwangs is a terrible problem, one in no way of her own making, but its a problem other forms of social security aim to address.

That may sound somewhat harsh, but legally speaking, it isnt shocking -- and it might even be correct. Accommodation isnt an endlessly flexible standard and, at some point, inability to work becomes a basis for disability. The statute could require longer sick leave but, as written, it doesnt.

Its perfectly fine to resist Gorsuch for not adhering to a progressive jurisprudence that takes seriously the governments duty to regulate the market. But it isnt fine to say he should side with workers against employers or parents against school districts. The rule of law isnt liberal or conservative -- and it shouldnt be.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story: Noah Feldman at nfeldman7@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stacey Shick at sshick@bloomberg.net

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Democrats' Misguided Argument Against Gorsuch - Bloomberg