Harriet Miers

[PanTheMan]

Mick Jagger on Monday night dedicated 'Back Of My Hand' to Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers during DC Rolling Stones concert...

Troubles Coming, I can read it like the back of my hand, I see misery, and paranoia, I can read it like the back of my hand...

(Really quite a nice Blues tune...)

[PanTheMan]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

Since I did the research for use elsewhere I'll repost it here, a list of 20th Century Supreme Court justices with zero time on the bench when they were appointed. There are some pretty big names on the list (including Brandeis who hadn't even ever been in public service before).

Cronyism on the court isn't exactly new, either. Earl Warren essentially earned his nomination by throwing the 1952 Republican nomination to Dwight Eisenhower instead of Robert A. Taft. As an interesting aside, Warren was later promised "the next seat on the Supreme Court" because it was assumed that associate justice Felix Frankfurter would be kicking the bucket any day time now. And then Chief Justice Fred Vinson suffered a heart attack. Eisenhower didn't think the original offer included the Chief Justice chair but when Warren cabled him saying, essentially "thank you for the nomination" he stuck to his word and gave it to him.

In doing the research for the list below, one thing stuck out at me: how the confirmation process changed. Up into the 1960s most supreme court nominations were approved within two weeks of the nomination being made and several were confirmed the day they were nominated. Not saying that is good or appropriate, it is just an interesting change.

Personally, I am not pleased with this pick. I don't care if a nominee has judicial experience (or even that they are a practiced lawyer) but they need to have some record indicating a high level of intellectual thought and accomplishment. It is essentially a brain job with a lot of navel gazing. I want to be confident that even if I disagree with them they're not exhausted keeping up with the plot twists on Alias.

Can't say that I'm confident of that.

William H. Moody - city solicitor, district attorney, 4 terms in house of representatives, Secretary of the Navy (was on bench for only four years).

James Clark McReynolds - professor of law at Vanderbilt, assistan U.S. Attorney General, U.S. Attorney General

Louis D. Brandeis - entire career prior to nomination was in private practice; founded Harvard Law Review

Harlan Fiske Stone - private practice, faculty Columbia Law, U.S. Attorney General

George Sutherland - Utah state senate, two terms in U.S. House of Reprentatives, two terms in U.S. Senate, U.S. Consul to the Hague.

Pierce Butler - assistant county attorney, county attorney, private practice, regent University of Minnesota

Charles Evans Hughes - private practice, faculty of Cornell Law, governor of New York, resigned court to run for president and was later appointed chief justice.

Owen J. Roberts - private practice, assistant district attorney, deputy attorney general, special United States attorney (investigating Harding administration), private practice.

Stanley F. Reed - Kentucky General Assembly, private practice, counsel to Federal Farm Board, counsel of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, Solicitor General

Felix Frankfurter - Assistant U.S. attorney, Bureau of Insular Affairs, faculty of Harvard Law, assistant Secretary of War, chairman of the War Labor Policies Board

William O. Douglas - school teacher, private practice, faculty at Columbia Law and Yale Law, Securities and Exchange Commission chairman

Earl Warren - deputy district attorney, district attorney, governor of California

James F. Byrnes - district attorney, 14 terms in U.S. House of Representatives, two terms in U.S. Senate

Rober H. Jackson - private practice, assistant general counsel in the IRS, assistant U.S. attorney general, Solicitor General, U.S. Attorney General

Harold H. Burton - corporate lawyer, private practice, one term in Ohio House of Representatives, mayor of Cleveland, U.S. Senate

Tom C. Clark - private practice, district attorney (Dallas), various positions in the Department of Justice up to Attorney General (resigned court when son was named Attorney General).

Byron R. White - private practice, deputy U.S. Attorney General

Arthur J. Goldberg - division head in OSS, counsel to CIO and United Steelworkers, Secretary of Labor (resigned court to become ambassador to U.N.)

Abe Fortas - staff jobs in SEC and PWA, undersecretary of Interior, private practice

Lewis F. Powell, Jr. - private practice, president of the American Bar Association, member of LBJ's crime commission.

William H. Rehnquist - private practice, assistant attorney general

Well Warren and Rehnquist made their marks for sure, But that FRANKFURTER, he created a muscle man in laboritory in the middle of the night, seduced 2 young Virgins, dressed everyone up in fishnets and underwear and ended up getting shot by a laser from some guy in Gold Lamee' who had thing for his own sister.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Press conference with Bush this morning. I swear, I hate listening to that man answer questions. But anyway, a couple things struck me as interesting and made me feel less than comfortable with the nomination.

First, he said she shares his judicial philosophy. I think it's no secret that I don't share his judicial philosophy, so that doesn't bode well in my book.

Secondly, he said that he picked her because he knew "her philosophy would be the same in 20 years." That's a good thing? So she's a closed minded, stubborn, pig headed fool like you who will never learn from a mistake (of course, according to Bush, he never makes mistakes so there's nothing to learn from, right?), never grow, and mistakes her own beliefs as unchanging truths? Greeeaaaat. What a positive characteristic.

Besides, is that even true of someone who is currently as close to Bush as anyone but contributed money to Al Gore in 1988?

[sleepyjeff]

He's just trying to placate those of us on the right who are less then thrilled GD.......I wouldn't worry too much.

[Alex]

Well, having a conservative judicial philosophy does not necessarily equal having a conservative political philosophy. Though I'm sure Bush believes her to have both.

In my opinion judicial philosphy is not something that should change over 20 years if it was well considered in the first place. It is not something that should be susceptible to the political vagaries of day-to-day life. Really the only reason to change your judicial philosphy is because you don't like the results achieved through its application and, in my opinion, a results oriented judiciary is a very bad thing and much of what has been wrong in the Supreme Court over the last 50 years (as much as I agree with most of their major political rulings, I think they were frequently decisions that more appropriately belonged in the legislative rather than judicial sphere).

But I still don't like this nomination.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

Well, having a conservative judicial philosophy does not necessarily equal having a conservative political philosophy. Though I'm sure Bush believes her to have both.

Oh, I know. I'm specifically worried about her sharing Bush's judicial philosophy, which involves so-called "originalism".

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Oh, I know. I'm specifically worried about her sharing Bush's judicial philosophy, which involves so-called "originalism".

What is your judicial philosophy, GD?

I am most certainly an "originalist". Many say that the founders could not have forseen all the technology and issues of modern day America, but I say that's crap. (Hopefully they wob't see the new right that the mayor of SF has just announced, which is WiFi - a right???? But that's a different story.) To suggest that the founders were that short sighted denies their brilliance.

They did forsee changes, which is exactly why they set up a limited federal government with every power not specifically given to the federal government to be left to the states. Let the states handle the micromanagement of law and the unforseen. I am not blind - we are so far from that now that we will never be back to it, but we need not erode it any farther.

[innerSpaceman]

On the contrary, scaeagles ... something must be done to restore that balance. It's over. Saying that we should not erode something that is competely gone is misguided. Right now, the federal government has 100% power over us all, and the judicial system, often the Supreme Court, is the only remaining bulwark against tyranny. It cannot simply operate as if it's 1781 with its head in the sand.

If we have gone beyond the Constitution in one way, we must not be saddled with its limits in other ways.

[Nephythys]

SCOTUS is not meant for quotas

[Ghoulish Delight]

The wording of the Constitution was selected very carefully. Excrutiatiningly carefully. So it's no acciden that it's so vague in many respects. I believe that vagueness was left in to allow the country to evolve its interpretation as the social consciousness evolved. Certainly there is enough other documentation to show that the framers had more specific views than ever made it into the wording. So why else would they leave that out? Would they really leave it vague and then demand that everything must follow strictly to such a vague document?

Here is a "proof" of my philosophy by induction (i.e., proving the opposite is not true). Let's assume that it's right to strictly follow the original document to the letter based on the specific goals of 1781. If that's the case, then all MEN were created equal. Woman should not be allowed the vote, blacks should not be counted as people, landowners should be offered more protection than other citizens.

Yes, it's a hyperbolic example, however, it only takes a single contradiction to disprove the premise. It is not a perfect document if taken as strict doctrine. The specifics aren't what are important. It's the spirit. The spirit of freedom, the spirit of equality. I believe the framers purposely left out the specifics, knowing that the extent of freedom that the people of their time would accept was NOT perfect freedom. It has allowed the scope of freedom and protection to expand with the public conscience. Strict constructionism equals stagnation.