Democrats versus Republicans

[erps]

My concern is only that she/he be a thinking and rational person. Of course, any nominee will have a point of view. That's to be expected. I want an educated point of view, though - as well as one which continues to learn through the years.

thinking, rational and educated like Scalia, Roberts and Thomas? or something different?

[wind_magic]

I want them to think too ... I want them to think "It's my job to carry out the Will of the American people as set forth in the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America", and I'd like for them to think that over and over. Whenever they get a bright idea or start getting creative, or decide they want to do what they think is best or whatever suits their own views, I want them to think "It's my job to carry out the Will of the American people as set forth in the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America".

[craigimass]

Originally Posted by erps

thinking, rational and educated like Scalia, Roberts and Thomas? or something different?

I honestly have not studied Roberts much.
Scalia is an ideologue, plain and simple. If the man on the street can guess 95% of the votes of a justice, then there is something wrong....

Thomas is reportedly a slacker. It is said that he simply asks Scalia how to vote. I have not studied this either, but that is the scuttlebutt....that he is intellectually lazy.

To be honest, the entire court, IMHO, fell from grace with Gore V Bush. No way that the Supreme Court of the US should pick a president - either one! That set a precedent which will probably result in hundreds of years of a partisan court.

[erps]

If the man on the street can guess 95% of the votes of a justice, then there is something wrong....

Perhaps, or another way to look at it is being consistent with his application of the law to the facts at hand instead of pulling rabbits out of hats. I'm more concerned about justices who are not predictable. That seems to be a better indicator of something amiss.

[craigimass]

If they were predictable, we could replace them with computers.....

Their job is to interpret not only the constitution, but thousands of former cases and decisions consisting of millions of pages and lots of nuance.

If they were/are predictable then either we are saying they have already studied every one of these millions of pages and committed them to memory...or, they are ideologues. You can't ask for a judge to listen to a case......the word is "listen".....if you don't want unpredictable answers!

[erps]

If they were/are predictable then either we are saying they have already studied every one of these millions of pages and committed them to memory...or, they are ideologues.

Sorry, but ideologues isn't in my vocabulary. I work in law enforcement. Our conduct is dictated by case law among other things. Cops who do not want to get sued keep up on case law. Usually the cases follow a logical progression, built on previous decisions and splitting the hair finer and finer. Even a street cop can anticipate how future hair splitting will go, if the cases follow the same logical progression. Opinion pieces on the radio this morning accurately predicted the result of the California decision on prop 8. Predictibility gives a sense of stability.

If we didn't want predictability, we would toss out hundreds of years of precident and start from scratch on each case.

[sck5]

Sotomayor started dirt poor in the housing projects. She worked to become the editor of the law review at Yale. That takes brains and hard work. And as for "picking a demographic" how come nobody brings that up when its a white male? They too are a minority in this country. A big one maybe but certainly well under half the people fit that description. If you look at the Court they are a huge majority.

Hey, when a Dem gets elected you get liberal nominees just like when Bush got elected you got conservative ones. I hated them of course but it was hard to argue that they were incompetent (except for Harriet Myers who withdrew after a few days after criticism from both sides as I recall). Why act all outraged when this is exactly the sort of thing that ALWAYS happens? Did anyone really expect Obama to pick a judge with Republican leanings?

(and please spare me the "nonpartisan" crap. anyone who doesnt have a point of view isnt paying attention and there is no reason to think that a mythical person who decides half the time the dems are right and the other half the repubs are right is somehow the best. Thats just softheaded BS.)

[erps]

Good points on anticipating Obama's appointment Sck5. Glad to see you're still dropping in. Actually, I thought the issue on supreme court nominees was not that they were Republican or Democrat, but whether they thought laws ought to be interpreted on what the founding fathers intended, or whether the constitution and our rights changes with the times, and I may have butchered that in trying to explain it.

[craigimass]

I must have missed something. Are any of that "minority" of white men on the court?

It's sort of a funny thing, because you are damned if you do or if you don't.

You and I don't get to decide this one. It's like watching the all-star game....we are just throwing our our BS.

Whatever happens, happens.

[camaraderie]

It does not bother me at all that women, blacks & hispanics now are getting representation on the court. It is a good thing for the country. Nor am I upset by this appointment...even though she is far more activist and liberal than I would prefer. Even among liberal candidates she is probably not the best candidate on a "judicial temperment and soundness of opinions" basis...but we've have far less qualified justices appointed and we know that any president will choose for political advantages among otherwise qualified candidates.
I will make the same argument I made with Roberts...it is the Senates job to advise and consent...not simply stonewall because we don't like the "tendancies"...as the Dems did. The president is entitled to his pick unless something new and unsettling is brought out in the hearings.

My own view is that her summary dismissal without adequate legal reasoning of the white firefighters discrimination claims. (See here
Reverse bias? Justices hear firefighter suit - Race & ethnicity- msnbc.com... may be overturned by the Supreme Court in the midst of her hearings. This may be the hot button issue that turns the public against her nomination. If not...I see a fairly straightforward confirmation process and the Republicans would do well not to P*** off the Hispanic community by just stubbornly standing in her way without good cause. She is a liberal replacing a liberal...this will not change anything on the court.