New justices usually take years to find their footing at the Supreme Court. For Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, who joined the court in April, a couple of months seem to have sufficed.
His early opinions were remarkably self-assured. He tangled with his new colleagues, lectured them on the role of the institution he had just joined, and made broad jurisprudential pronouncements in minor cases.
.. When the case was argued in April, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who joined the court in 2006, said there was no clear answer to the question.
.. In dissent, he said the answer was plain, as some kinds of cases belong in one court and other kinds in another.
.. Justice Gorsuch’s only majority opinion of the term came in Henson v. Santander Consumer USA. It was about debt collection, and it was unanimous.
Here, too, Justice Gorsuch was ready to swing for the fences.