New Justice
As expected, President Bush kept his campaign promise to nominate a conservative to the bench, but he surprised a lot of pundits who were expecting him to name a woman, which would have been a popular move according to all the polls, and a politically correct one, too. I'm impressed that he didn't succumb to that pressure, and instead chose the person he really wanted, regardless of race or gender or the poll numbers, though it does raise the question of whether or not it's important to have female representation on the bench. We're down to just one. Is that enough? Does it matter?
I'm looking forward to the confirmation hearings to see what Roberts is about. I only know of him what I've read in the last day, which is very little, and a lot of the information I have seen presents contradictory views of him anyway, so we'll just have to wait for the hearings. And even then, these guys are occasionally prone to idealogical shifts, so we won't really know what we have on our hands for perhaps a few years. Lifetime terms can have that effect.
Specter is going to lead the confirmation process, and he said he was hoping for a nominee who would "bring balance to the court"...the chosen one, if you will. That would be the ideal outcome, considering the justice he is replacing. O'Connor was often the swing vote on a divided court, one of the few moderates, and the loss felt from her retirement would be greatly mitigated by a replacement that brings similar characteristics to the table. Rob, what do you and your pops think of Roberts? Where does he lie on the strict constructionism -> judicial activism scale? And most importantly, what's his midichlorian count?
One under-reported implication of this chain of events is that Stanford loses one of its four undergraduate and two law school alums from the bench, and Harvard gains its sixth(!) law school alum. The Cardinal has most likely lost its chance to get a majority on the court and overturn the Screw of '82.
Interesting O'Connor sidebar: she finished third in her Stanford Law School class of '52, and Chief Justice Rehnquist was number one in that same class. That's like the '84 NBA Draft! So who the heck is the poor loser who finished at number two, the Sam Bowie of the class?
The mystery man is Gerry Thede, a retired attorney in Santa Barbara who worked for Price, Postel, and Parma, the oldest perpetual law firm in California, established in 1852, and the same firm that turned down O'Connor out of law school and suggested she be a secretary. A freakin' secretary! Perhaps they set the bar for their lawyers at top two in the class, and everyone else got relegated to secretary. Lucky for us the Supreme Court's standards aren't quite so high.
I'm looking forward to the confirmation hearings to see what Roberts is about. I only know of him what I've read in the last day, which is very little, and a lot of the information I have seen presents contradictory views of him anyway, so we'll just have to wait for the hearings. And even then, these guys are occasionally prone to idealogical shifts, so we won't really know what we have on our hands for perhaps a few years. Lifetime terms can have that effect.
Specter is going to lead the confirmation process, and he said he was hoping for a nominee who would "bring balance to the court"...the chosen one, if you will. That would be the ideal outcome, considering the justice he is replacing. O'Connor was often the swing vote on a divided court, one of the few moderates, and the loss felt from her retirement would be greatly mitigated by a replacement that brings similar characteristics to the table. Rob, what do you and your pops think of Roberts? Where does he lie on the strict constructionism -> judicial activism scale? And most importantly, what's his midichlorian count?
One under-reported implication of this chain of events is that Stanford loses one of its four undergraduate and two law school alums from the bench, and Harvard gains its sixth(!) law school alum. The Cardinal has most likely lost its chance to get a majority on the court and overturn the Screw of '82.
Interesting O'Connor sidebar: she finished third in her Stanford Law School class of '52, and Chief Justice Rehnquist was number one in that same class. That's like the '84 NBA Draft! So who the heck is the poor loser who finished at number two, the Sam Bowie of the class?
The mystery man is Gerry Thede, a retired attorney in Santa Barbara who worked for Price, Postel, and Parma, the oldest perpetual law firm in California, established in 1852, and the same firm that turned down O'Connor out of law school and suggested she be a secretary. A freakin' secretary! Perhaps they set the bar for their lawyers at top two in the class, and everyone else got relegated to secretary. Lucky for us the Supreme Court's standards aren't quite so high.
posted by Chang Kim at Tuesday, July 19, 2005
3 Comments:
man, but sam bowie had a nice turn around fadeaway. i guess MJ did too..
i wonder if there will be clarence thomas-like controversy this time
"His client was just incredulous, beside himself. 'How could we have lost 9-0?' John finally just quipped back, 'Because there are only nine justices.'
Seems like a cool guy :p
The Big Guy seems to think that we could have done a lot worse and I'd tend to agree. Roberts has a very conventional background - the worst case scenario for him is that he's a stealth hardliner. But I guess that hearings are for figuring that out. He hasn't come out as part of the batty "constitution in exile" gang, at least
The New Republic had an interesting piece suggesting that the less strident character of the nominee may have something to do with Bush's difficulties with Bolton and Social Security and the fact that Alberto Gonzales, who is less of an ideologue, played a heavy role in picking the nominee.
All parties will need to step carefully here - thorough judicious questioning without strong innuendo is called for. Unless Roberts turns out to be another fan of Long Dong Silver.
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