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

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I'm a con law groupie, which means I'm going to have to disagree. At least temporarily.

Women are slightly over half the population of the United States. They aren't yet slightly over half the population of the superstar constitutional lawyers in the United States. They're more of those than they used to be, and I hope it will soon get to the point where they are proportionately represented in that group; however, I'm not willing to confine the search to only that smallish subsection of those I consider competent for the job who happen to be women. There are too few really good con law judges in the first place; we need to be able to take the best of them, whomever they may be demographically.

I trust Obama as a con law scholar himself; if he weren't currently already employed, he'd be capable of being a damn fine Supreme Court justice himself. I'd like him to look first among the women in the field, but ultimately go with whatever individual's got the best skills for an insanely difficult job, regardless of that person's sexual equipment. And then I'd like to see some changes at the lower levels of judicial appointments and law school hiring, to put more women in a position to be top constitutional judges.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion.

My opinion is that women ought to be looked at first for the next five Supreme Court positions that come open. If you honestly can't find any good women prospects (a question that current Republican leaders should get no voice in, in my opinion, as they are incapable of viewing a woman candidate dispassionately), *then* we can consider going with a suitable male. If we wind up with one or more males in the next five candidates, we should, of course, continue to consider women first for every single Supreme Court position after that until we have five woman judges.

Because the current boys-locker-room atmosphere in the Supreme Court is profoundly disturbing to someone who is not part of the currently privileged gender, and I don't think it will be fixed by anything less than this proto-equality I have suggested.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I'd happily accept your proposal so long as "good prospects" are defined by a pretty astronomical standard. I've been studying the Supreme Court for twenty years and can count on my fingers the number of justices I consider to have been truly good at their job between about 1955 and the present (I haven't done enough research from before that to have an opinion). I don't want to appoint justices who are merely up to the standard of those who have been on the Court so far, I want to appoint justices up to the standard of the great ones who have been on the Court so far. Preferably, yes, I would choose women until there's an appropriate number of them... so long as I can find that many women who are likely to be among the most brilliant justices in history. If I can't, I'm going to look to see if I can find men who could be.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Hmmm.

As long as every single man who is chosen is absolutely stellar, yes. But I certainly don't agree that women prospects should be held to higher standards than men prospects, and I think, if you can't find a stellar woman, then can't find a stellar man, you should go back and choose the best woman, even if the best man would have been slightly better in an already gender balanced court.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I'll accept that search method happily. I agree that women should not be held to higher standards than men, I just think that if there is not a stellar woman, we should look to see if there *is* a stellar man before accepting a just-okay candidate of either gender.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Okay.