SCOTUS: Stevens's Retirement & Replacement

It's yet early in the Obama administration. Taking into consideration the possibility of a second term, this president may yet place as many justices on the SCOTUS as Eisenhower.

Let the games begin.

~String

 

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Thank God the conservative justices are all relatively young and healthy.

 

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Well. . . sort of.

Scalia and Kennedy are getting old. Both were born in the mid 30's.

Though, it's Ginsburg who's on death's doorstep, with her bouts of colon cancer and overall emaciation. I expect her to either retire or die within the next four years.

~String

 

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Welll you old Scalia is a Cheney hunting buddy and we all know what can happen to a Cheney hunting buddy.

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Kennedy is 73
Scalia is 74
Thomas is 61
Alito is 60
Roberts is 50

One can always pray for deliverance from the bonds of judicial tyranny.

 

Stevens was a conservative appointment - Gerald Ford's choice, and probably Republican.

Funny to see people who don't like "judicial activism" celebrating the probable long tenure of guys like Roberts, though. You think disallowing restrictions on multinational corporations spending hundreds of millions in US political campaigns, declaring financial support to be "speech" and corporations to be endowed with political rights as if they were people, overturning more than a century of precedent and reading things into the Constitution that remain missing under re-inspection, is radical? You ain't seen nothin' yet.

At least if they ruled in favor of gay marriage, the issue would have some bearing on actual physical people as mentioned in the Constitution.

Meanwhile, the Reps are threatening to filibuster anyone they don't like, which would be a serious break with tradition in the Senate - but to the modern "conservative", tradition seems of very little import.

 

Possible nominations

The early front-runner appears to be Solicitor General Elena Kagan. I'll take her, but I'm not thrilled.

To the other, Dawn Johnsen just withdrew her fourteen-month nomination to head the Office of Legal Counsel. Glenn Greenwald made an interesting point while lamenting the withdrawal:

With 59 and then 60 Democratic votes in the Senate all year long (which included the support of GOP Sen. Richard Lugar, though the opposition of Dem. Sen. Ben Nelson), it's extremely difficult to understand why the White House -- if it really wanted to -- could not have had Johnsen confirmed (or why she at least wasn't included in the spate of recently announced recess appointments).

I don't know the real story behind what happened here -- I had an email exchange with Johnsen this afternoon but she was only willing to provide me her official, pro forma, wholly uninformative statement -- but here's what I do know: virtually everything that Dawn Johnsen said about executive power, secrecy, the rule of law and accountability for past crimes made her an excellent fit for what Candidate Obama said he would do, but an awful fit for what President Obama has done.

(Boldface accent added)​

I suppose it would be too much to hope that Obama turn around and send Johnsen to the Supreme Court.
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Notes:

Greenwald, Glenn. "The death of Dawn Johnsen's nomination". Unclaimed Territory. April 9, 2010. Salon.com. April 10, 2010. http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/09/johnsen

 

I think Hillary Clinton would make a good choice. I know her name has been thrown around before. But she has been a Senator and she have been vetted by the Senate once before. I think it would be very difficult for the Senate to not confirm her.

I would hate to loose her in her current position, but I think the greater calling for both her and the nation would be on the supremes. She just might be able to exercise some leadership and whip some of those folks on the court, like Roberts into shape.

 

I think that Obama is still intent on placing another female on the court. My hunch is that it'll be Elena Kagan

~String

 

My guess is that Obama will have to appoint a center leaning candidate to have him/her confirmed in the Senate. This is, after all, how John Paul Stevens got the job in the first place---Ford picked a center leaning nominee to avoid a fight.

From wiki:

If it was a tight vote last time in the Senate, it's not looking good for her this time around.

It looks like she doesn't have a ton of experience...what makes her qualified to sit on the supreme court?

 

Isn't that what the Democrats threatened to do to Bush's nominees?

 

Where've you been for the past 20+ years? From the Urban Dictionary:

1. bork
Irreversibly damaged.
My soundcard is borked.

2. bork
Exclamation commonly used by muppet swedes.
Bork bork bork.

3. bork
to have one's character assassinated;
as in the treatment by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee of Supreme Court Justice nominee Robert Bork.
You sure got borked on that deal.​

I certainly don't remember you complaining about the Democrats filibustering judicial nominees.

 

There's nothing wrong when leftists filibuster conservative nominees, because they hold the sole power of determining who is and who isn't qualified.

~String

 

Judicial experience isn't the qualifying factor. Legal and leadership experience is. In fact, there is a movement in many schools of thought to begin appointing Justices with "real life" experience outside the court system.

As for her close vote last time, guess what: every vote in this congress will be along party lines. No matter WHO the next nominee is, the Republicans will attempt a filibuster because of the impending election.

~String

 

Nope. Certainly not in advance of their even being named.

Like who?

Bork was not filibustered.

And if you have been following his subservience to Reaganite politics, in his political career prior to his nomination and subsequent writings for his think tank employers, you must realize what a debt of gratitude you owe to Ted Kennedy for keeping that asshole off of the Supreme Court.

Name a conservative nomination to the Supreme Court that was filibustered by leftists.

Hence my comment - we have a serious break with tradition coming.

The Rep use of filibuster is already unprecedented, as Party tactic. This marks yet another low point.

 

Yes, but his nomination clearly marked the turning point in the treatment of judicial appointments. And that turning point (a major break with tradition and a new low) was clearly brought about by the LEFT.

Again, where was your criticism for Democrat filibustering of judicial nominees?

Did you forget that after the Democrats took control of the Senate in May 2001, following Jim Jeffords becoming an Independent, eight of Bush’s first eleven May 2001 appellate court nominees had not had so much as a Judiciary Committee hearing as we were coming down to the 2002 elections? And after the Democrats lost control of the Senate in those elections, when they could no longer stall by refusing to hold hearings, they moved to the filibuster — over no fewer than ten nominees. Did you forget that our good friend, the eminently qualified Miguel Estrada, one of Bush’s May 2001 nominees, finally withdrew his name from consideration in September 2003, after 28 months in limbo and six failed cloture votes?

To be sure, those were appellate court nominees, but the principle is the same — and Bush’s Supreme Court nominees escaped a filibuster, let me remind you, only after the “gang of 14″ finally reached a compromise, failing which the “nuclear option” would have brought an end to the unprecedented Democratic filibuster of Bush’s nominees. (I ignore the 1968 Abe Fortas case, which had special circumstances.)

​

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2010/01/20/filibuster-obama-nominees-im-shocked/

 

The issue was the unprecedented use of the filibuster, OK? That was the point I made, and you quoted as the motivation of your response.

As far as Bork's nomination - other nominations to the Court had been vigorously opposed. His nomination more clearly marked a turning point in the political abuse of the Supreme Court, as he was a famous ideologue and politicized member of Reagan's administration, appointed by Reagan for transparently political and ideological reasons.

Like a lot of these newfangled "conservatives", Bork made a big deal out being picked on (recall Clarence Thomas playing the race card bigtime) while deflecting attention from the facts of his own career and writings that had led to so many people stridently opposing his nomination. He was a lousy nomination, with even many of the 42 Senators who voted to confirm him stating that they did so largely out of a sense that such appointments were within the prerogative of the President.

In some other thread, where they would be relevant.

The tradition, with Supreme Court nominations, is quite different. The tradition was the subject of my comment, if you recall.

And note, just for starters, that the Dems were threatening filibuster of specific nominations to appellate courts - less than a dozen of them, many of Harriet Meiers quality or worse. Note further that compromise was possible, with Dems (who never had "control" of the Senate, btw, and never actually filibustered - the Cato Institute is often slippery with its "facts", you have to watch them).

So about my original comment - you plan on posting anything at least relevant?

 

The Clinton Question

The idea of Justice Clinton is, admittedly, strange to me. But the proposition did get a strange boost in the public discourse today, from Sen. Orrin Hatch, of all people.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, appeared on NBC's "Today" show Monday to discuss the Supreme Court vacancy created by retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, but set [off] a torrent of rumors that President Obama might choose Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as Stevens' successor.

After declining to give his opinion on some of the rumored contenders for the seat, including Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Hatch threw out another well-known name as a possible Stevens replacement. "I even heard the name Hillary Clinton today," he said. "That would be an interesting person in the mix."

Matt Lauer later asked Hatch to elaborate on whether he thinks Clinton would be qualified to join the court, to which Hatch said he wouldn't "pre-judge" anybody. But, he added, "I happen to like Hillary Clinton. I have a high respect for her and think a great deal of her."

(Murphy)​

In truth, I'm not sure what to think. I wouldn't object to Clinton's appointment to the Court, but I'm still holding a flicker of hope that President Obama will nominate Dawn Johnsen, who recently withdrew her nomination to head the Office of Legal Counsel after being unable to even get a vote before the Senate after fourteen months of Republican stalling. Not only would Johnsen make an excellent justice, but it would be a crafty political move that would throw the GOP into fits during the summer campaign before November's midterm election.

Considering Justice Ginsburg's age and health, President Obama may have yet another appointment to make as early as next year, at the end of the next session. That might be a good time to send Clinton to the nation's highest bench. And I think the president is well-postured, having just won health care reform and secured a nuclear treaty with Russia, to be fairly demanding with his nomination to Stevens' seat. Elena Kagan is currently considered the front-runner because she seems a "safe" nomination for allegedly being extraordinarily accommodating to conservative viewpoints while serving as Dean of Harvard Law School. Yet unlike Solicitor General Kagan, Judges Merrick Garland and Diane Wood—both apparently on the short list and appointed to their benches by President Clinton—did not just lose a major case before the very bench to which they might be nominated.

And with liberals expressing concern about Kagan's centrist views on executive power—an issue that will likely remain contentious for many years as the United States prosecutes its perpetual War on Terror—it is hard to see how Secretary Clinton would be any more satisfying. In a broad range of issues, Clinton, like Kagan, is hardly a threat to the status quo of American politics and jurisprudence, but for many, that seems to be the problem. As with Kagan, I'll take a Clinton appointment, but I'm am not, as yet, thrilled about the prospect.
____________________

Notes:

Murphy, Patricia. "Justice Hillary Clinton? Orrin Hatch Says Maybe". The Capitolist. April 12, 2010. PoliticsDaily.com. April 12, 2010. http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/04/12/justice-hillary-clinton-orin-hatch-says-maybe/

 

does anyone no what the chances of wood being the nominee are?

 

Well it looks like Hillary Clinton is out, at least for this round. I would hope they would nominate someone who will maintain the balance Stevens provided to the court, and someone who is young enough to spend a considerable period of time on the court. Additionally, I think it smart if they can find someone who will not become a cause celebe for Republicans in the election this year.

I think Tiassa is right, it might be a wiser strategy for the Democrats to keep Hillary in their back pocket should another judge resign at a time when Democrats may have a weaker position in Congress.

 

The pecking order

Specifically? Call a bookie. However, according to the press and punditry, the pecking order on the short list goes Kagan, Garland, Wood. Some would suggest this coincides with their ranking from "moderate" (e.g, conservative) to liberal.