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Justice Neil Gorsuch's first months at the Supreme Court have rattled left-leaning legal experts enough that they have begun questioning the wisdom of blocking Judge Robert Bork's high court nomination 30 years ago.

After Justice Lewis Powell retired in June 1987, President Ronald Reagan tapped Bork from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals one month later to serve as Powell's replacement. Under heavy pressure from liberal groups and Democratic senators, Bork's nomination failed in the Senate.

Three decades later, Senate Republicans refused to hold a hearing or vote on former President Barack Obama's selection to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia, Judge Merrick Garland. The move paid off, as the November 2016 electoral victories made it possible for President Trump to fill the vacant seat with Gorsuch.

At a review of the Supreme Court's most recent term, New York University Law School's Thane Rosenbaum asked his panelists, who Rosenbaum characterized as leaning left, if Democrats ought to regret the Bork battle.

CNN legal analyst Joan Biskupic said she did not believe Democrats would regret denying Bork and deflected her answer to how Republicans have proceeded in recent Supreme Court fights.

NYU Law School professor Kenji Yoshino provided a much more forceful statement of support for rejecting Bork.

"I want to say progressives might regret [blocking Bork], but progressives would be wrong in regretting that," Yoshino said. "Because if you actually trace what happened because Bork went down, then [Judge] Douglas Ginsburg went down, then we got Justice Kennedy.

"We have the luxury as progressives of fighting over Kennedy's vote in all of these cases until now, until he's replaced, in a way that we would not have had the luxury of fighting over Bork's vote with regard to things like same-sex marriage or any number of other issues, abortion, what have you, affirmative action."

But by no means were the liberals onstage happy with the first few months of Gorsuch's jurisprudence or interaction with his colleagues.

"It is remarkable the number of times that this new justice has chosen to write technically unnecessary opinions and then in those opinions sometimes to say things that are remarkable," said Trevor Morrison, an NYU Law professor.

Morrison spoke about how he thought the boldness in Gorsuch's writing would carry more weight after he had more experience on the high court.

Biskupic noted that she also found Gorsuch's tenure at the Supreme Court surprising in some ways.

"I have never in my more than 25 years covering the court seen a justice come on this forcefully in a way that rattles his colleagues," Biskupic said. "If Neil Gorsuch continues to vote and write the way he has just in these short months, he might even be to the right of Antonin Scalia in a couple [of] things so that would obviously tip the balance over that way. And also he's giving kind of camaraderie to two justices who had seemed a little bit marginalized, Justices Alito and Thomas, and he's fortifying them and that's, I think, important, in terms of the balance of power on the court."

Dan Abrams, an MSNBC legal affairs analyst, noted that Gorsuch is doing what he was appointed to do and that the newest justice clearly had the confidence of his convictions. Abrams also said it appeared likely that Trump would be sending reinforcements to the high court before the next presidential election.

"Bottom line, most people think that there'll be, I think if you look at the numbers, that by 2020 President Trump will likely have had two more Supreme Court picks, and two picks that will fundamentally change the court this won't be a Scalia for Gorsuch," Abrams said. "That's pure guesswork, but if you were a gambling person, that's what you would bet. That's the odds-on bet, is that he'll get certainly one, and very likely two."

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Neil Gorsuch's Supreme Court rise makes liberals debate wisdom of ... - Washington Examiner