We only know what a lot of you already know about the Trump administration’s pending U.S. Supreme Court appointment – that Colorado’s own Neil Gorsuch, who currently serves on the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, is said to have the inside track. Or, such is the word on the street at the moment.

Gorsuch is a Centennial State native. His mother and step-father were members of Colorado’s General Assembly; his late mom, Anne Gorsuch Burford, later stoked controversy as the combative director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Reagan administration. Neil Gorsuch roundly receives high marks and glowing reviews from the legal community for his top-drawer credentials and command of jurisprudence. He, of course, gets higher praise still from those whose politics tilts to the right. He holds to a judicial philosophy that is often called “originalist” or “textualist” – i.e., if the words aren’t actually in the Constitution, it ain’t happening – music to the ears of a lot of Republicans.

So, if he is nominated by Team Trump, will the high esteem in which Gorsuch is held – even outside conservative circles – spare him the usual blistering broadsides that by now have become the ritual of the opposing party during confirmation hearings?

Don’t count on it, says Mike Norton. The Colorado legal veteran, who served as U.S. attorney in Denver from 1988 to 1993, is a huge fan of Gorsuch’s but doesn’t have nearly as much faith in the confirmation process itself. Norton, now a fellow at the Lakewood-based Centennial Institute and an attorney in private practice, says the process simply has gotten too partisan, too high-stakes and too nasty.

“There has been a total politicization of the process,” Norton told us today. “Supreme Court nominations have been politicized, demonized, chastised … ever since the Robert Bork nomination.” That was a reference to the ill-fated Reagan administration nominee who was rejected in a floor vote by the full U.S. Senate after an extremely contentious confirmation hearing. Allies of Bork felt that Senate Democrats came gunning for Bork – the tactic even spawned a new verb, “borking” – in an effort to discredit him without giving him a chance.

Norton noted today that current U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York already is threatening to fight the Trump administration’s nominee regardless of who it is.

Here’s Vanity Fair on the subject earlier this month:

According to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Democrats are prepared to block any of Trump’s nominees, so long as the Senate requires a supermajority of 60 votes. “We are not going to settle on a Supreme Court nominee. If they don’t appoint someone who’s really good, we’re gonna oppose him tooth and nail,” he vowed Tuesday night during an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. That “stolen seat” will only be filled if Trump selects a nominee with bipartisan appeal-a possibility that is “hard for me to imagine,” Schumer added.

Maybe Gorsuch – whose mother had epic battles of her own with Congress when she ran the EPA – is up to the challenge?

Then again, maybe it is precisely that kind of hindsight that has Gorsuch crossing his fingers right about now – in the hope that Donald Trump will end up picking somebody else.