Filling the Supreme Court vacancy
From the Center for American Progress:
On Friday, Supreme Court Justice David Souter officially announced his intention to resign at the end of the Court’s term in June, setting up President Obama for a key decision that will shape his legacy. Making a surprise appearance during the White House press briefing that afternoon, Obama explained that he will choose someone with not only "a sharp and independent mind and a record of excellence and integrity," but also a "quality of empathy." "I will seek someone who understands that justice isn’t about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a case book," said Obama. "It is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people’s lives — whether they can make a living and care for their families; whether they feel safe in their homes and welcome in their own nation." Obama has also promised to consult with both Democrats and Republicans on his pick, but conservatives automatically went into attack mode just hours after news broke of Souter’s departure. During the Bush administration, congressional Republicans insisted that presidents should be allowed wide latitude to choose their Supreme Court nominees and claimed that the use of the filibuster when approving them is unconstitutional. Will they adhere to these views now that a Democratic president is in office?
NO ‘SHOCK AND AWE’: President George H.W. Bush appointed Souter after he was assured by then-U.S. Senator Warren Rudman that the U.S. Court of Appeals judge was conservative. However, Souter will be remembered for how often he aligned with more liberal justices in recent years, especially on issues of executive power, capital punishment, and race. Therefore, Obama’s nomination of a new justice is unlikely to shift the Court’s balance, as even most Republicans have admitted. "I have no illusions about President Obama appointing a conservative like Alito or Roberts and so forth," said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL). Center for American Progress President and CEO John Podesta told the Washington Post this weekend that he believes Obama will choose "someone who’s going to be mainstream, moderate in their orientation." Similarly, Obama’s former law colleagues and students say that he is unlikely to choose a "larger-than-life liberal to counter the conservative pyrotechnics of Justice Antonin Scalia." "His nominee will not create the proverbial shock and awe," said Charles J. Ogletree, a Harvard professor who has known the president since his days as a student.
PROTECTING ‘PEOPLE WHO DON’T HAVE A VOICE’: In October 2008, Obama hinted to the Detroit News that he would look for justices in the model of Souter and Stephen Breyer, a Democratic appointee, calling them "very sensible judges." "That, I think is the kind of justice that I’m looking for — somebody who respects the law, doesn’t think that they should be making law…but also has a sense of what’s happening in the real world and recognizes that one of the roles of the courts is to protect people who don’t have a voice," he added. Last week, the Obama administration reiterated this view, with Press Secretary Robert Gibbs telling reporters that the president was looking for someone with "diversity in their background and experience." Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA), potentially a pivotal vote on Obama’s nominee, has also said that the high court "could use some diversity along a number of lines," a point reiterated by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). Many people anticipate that Obama will be looking closely at women candidates, as Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been the only female justice since Sandra Day O’Connor’s departure just over three years ago. Indeed, a recent study demonstrated the effect of having a diversity of experience in the judiciary. According to Christina L. Boyd at Washington University and Professor Lee Epstein at Northwestern University, "female judges are approximately 10 percent more likely to rule in favor of the party bringing the discrimination claim. … When male and female judges serve together to decide a sex discrimination case, the male judges are nearly 15 percent more likely to rule in favor of the party alleging discrimination than when they sit with male judges only."
CONSERVATIVE INCONSISTENCY: In 2005, when President Bush was trying to push through his Supreme Court nominees, Republican senators decried any attempts to use a filibuster to block them. Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) called the legislative maneuver "inconsistent with the Constitution," and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) complained that the chamber’s role had been changed from "advise and consent" to "advise and obstruct." Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) called the filibuster a "mockery of our system." However, yesterday on Fox News Sunday, Ensign refused to rule out the use of the filibuster on Obama’s nominee. Similarly, Karl Rove recently argued that conservatives have a right to oppose Obama’s pick if he or she is "very liberal," even though the Washington Post reported in July 2005 that Rove believed "opposition-party senators have a responsibility to back a president’s choice if they believe a nominee is qualified, even if they disagree with the person’s views." It is clear that many conservatives are ignoring their stance on Bush’s nominee and gearing up to cast any person Obama picks as a "left-wing judicial activist.
