A quick thought on the Supreme Court situation

[catsittingstill]

Women are slightly over half the population.  So women should be slightly over half the Supreme Court.  There are nine Supreme Court judges, so that means five of them should be women.

The most we've ever had is two.  George W. Bush left us with only one.  Of course the next Supreme Court judge should be a woman.  The next four Supreme Court judges should be women.  Unless Ruth Bader Ginsberg retires in that time, in which case the next five Supreme Court judges should be women.

Duh.

And I'm being moderate and patient, here.  If I was really going for true equality and fairness, the Supreme Court should have only women on it for the next one hundred and ninety years, at which point a single male would be allowed to serve and twelve years later, a second male would be allowed to serve, with the court only opening up to allow a total of four males sixteen years after that.

Comments

[nojay.livejournal.com]

To be fair, President Bush did try to appoint a woman Justice but the patriarchal Establishment successfully blocked his desires and he reluctantly had to forgo his liberal principles and choose from the all-male second-best candidate list. Bummer that.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I can well believe she was blocked partly because of her gender. I had the impression there were some real questions regarding whether she was qualified, however.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Among the legal community, there was no question about it. She wasn't. There are many who are, but few of them are Republicans, let alone the kind of vapidly loyal Republicans Bush demanded from anyone he hired. It was the same sort of problem which landed us with Clarence Thomas. Finding a first-rate black constitutional law scholar wasn't difficult, but finding a first-rate black, passionately conservative, constitutional law scholar couldn't be done, so we ended up with third-rate.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Among the legal community, there was no question about it. She wasn't.

That was my impression but it had been a while since I read about it and I wasn't sure how solid this opinion was.

There are many who are, but few of them are Republicans,

If what you meant here was "there are many women who are qualified for the Supreme Court" I am confused how you came to argue below that we shouldn't confine the search to women. If you meant something else I'm having a hard time spotting it, though. Would you be willing to clarify?

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Sorry. There are many women whom the ABA will recognize as qualified for the Supreme Court, but not very many of them are Republicans. There are far fewer women whom *I* consider qualified for the Supreme Court, because there are far fewer people period whom I consider qualified than there are whom the ABA considers qualified. I'm picky.

I'm fine with starting by looking at the top women in the field, and hoping to be able to find someone really good in that group, before moving on to the men only if necessary.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

What's your take on Sotomayor? The wingnuts already don't like her, and that's a point in her favor, but maybe you know something substantial.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

From what I've read about her career, I am impressed, but I've had neither a chance to read her judicial opinions directly yet nor a chance to ask the lawyers of my acquaintance if they have an inside scoop. So I'm not going on an awful lot more than you are. I would certainly think she sounds acceptable; what will interest me, when I get a chance to read her opinions, is what she has to say about the cases which have no political significance -- how well she decides the ones which just get decided on law. Also how well she steers a middle ground between the legitimate issues on the complicated questions: "the easy ones have been solved already."

When Justice Stevens was new on the court, he wrote opinions sufficiently unusual, presenting legal questions that the rest of the court didn't want to bother considering, which led them to describe the decision as being "5-3-1" or "6-2-1," rather than divided between two groups only. That's become my ideal for a justice: someone who can do that and will.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

At this point I support her simply because the wingnuts are terrified of her. They've apparently started a full-court press against her, complete with smears, and this before she's even been nominated. If she's that dangerous to them, I'm in favor of her, unless she turns out to be really awful.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

The problem is that, since the wing-nuts go on political position, I can't tell from their opposition whether she is a political-agenda-driven liberal judge or a law-driven liberal judge. I will tolerate the former but reserve my respect for the latter. She may be the latter; I have heard nothing yet to suggest she isn't. But I have no way to tell either way based simply on the nature of the opposition to her.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Could a committed leftist, even one as moderate as an English Labor Party moderate, be confirmed to the Federal bench?

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

No idea. But it doesn't take being a committed anything to make, IMO, a non-stellar judge. It takes a tendency to see a legal case based on what would be the best policy, rather than what the legal issues are which need to be addressed in one way or another.

Occasionally, the great judges will blow past case law for the sake of good policy or fairness; they need to be able to do so. But they also need to know how to analyze a workaday case which has little to no political relevance and draw a conclusion that makes legal sense, and they need to know how, when they do determine policy, to write it so that it can be used effectively as precedent on the legal issues in future. There have been a lot of justices whose voting record I like but whose written opinions I think are simplistic and badly handled.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

[belated note]

Coverage of Sotomayor's opinions on SCOTUSBLOG.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much; this is really helpful. I'm still in the process of reading through it, but from what I see so far, I would support her happily.