The US Senate will now have a fresh opportunity to consider the vacancy for the 9th Justice of SCOTUS after their inertia on considering and ratifying Obama’s nomination Merrick Garland. President Trump has now decided to nominate Colorado federal appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch (widely seen as an originalist) who at 49, could serve and shape the decisions of the Supreme Court in a more conservative direction for decades to come. 

The BBC has produced a really detailed story here on why this matters so much.