Donald Trump names conservative Judge Neil Gorsuch as Supreme Court nominee

'I look forward to meeting with Senators over the coming weeks as we begin this process'

Judge Neil Gorsuch speaks at the White House in Washington DC on January 31, 2017. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty)

President Trump has selected Judge Neil Gorsuch as his Supreme Court pick to fill the vacant seat open by the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

“I am proud to announce the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch for Justice of the Supreme Court,” the president said in a statement. “This has been the most transparent and most important Supreme Court selection process in the history of our country and I wanted the American people to have a voice in this nomination."

"Judge Gorsuch has a superb intellect, an unparalleled legal education," he continued, "and a commitment to interpreting the Constitution according to its text. He will make an incredible Justice as soon as the Senate confirms him.”

The selection likely kickstarts a bitter political battle between Democrats and Republicans, who last year refused to confirm President Barack Obama's selection, Judge Merrick Garland.

Protesters demonstrated outside the US Supreme Court Building on Tuesday, repeatedly chanting "not my America."

Judge Gorsuch was nominated to the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Denver by President George W Bush in 2006. He was confirmed by the Senate by a voice vote.

At 49-years-old, Judge Gorsuch is the youngest nominee for the seat in 25 years. If he's confirmed, the court would be split 5-to-4 between Republicans and Democrats, respectively.

“I am honoured and humbled to receive this nomination,” Judge Gorsuch told reporters. “I look forward to meeting with Senators over the coming weeks as we begin this process.”

Over the years, the Colorado native established himself as a reliably conservative judge by his rulings. He’s most widely known for defending Hobby Lobby and Little Sisters of the Poor in court battles against the Affordable Care Act, which required them to pay for contraceptive coverage for employees. The court sided with the companies with a divided vote in 2014.

​“Judge Gorsuch has repeatedly sided with corporations over working people, demonstrated a hostility toward women's rights, and most troubling, hewed to an ideological approach to jurisprudence that makes me skeptical that he can be a strong, independent justice on the court,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.