Round-Up
In the USA Today, Joan Biskupic has this article on the composition of the Court. Biskupic also has this interview with Justice Ginsburg about her reaction to the absence of Justice O’Connor.
The AP’s Mark Sherman reported here about how Justices Kennedy, O’Connor, and Scalia have defended their decision in Bush v. Gore.
Here, Christopher Rugaber writes in the Insurance Journal about the Court’s decision to hear United States v. Atlantic Research Corp.
Jan Crawford Greenburg had this article in the Washington Post last weekend on President Bush’s Supreme Court appointments. Ilya Somin has this post on Greenburg’s book, Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court, at the Volokh Conspiracy.
Finally, at the Election Law blog, Rick Hasen has this post on the significance of the Wisconsin Right to Life case.
There is a word to describe these articles about only one woman on the court; sophistry. While this feigned “concern” about the image that only one woman justice will convey to the public at large about the court is all very nice sounding, it is also meaningless. The argument, disguised with a good dose of emotional syrup, posits the position that public bodies should be sexually diverse for no other reason than that not doing so harms the image of the institution in the eyes of the public. But how do we know this to be true? Does the public’s confidence in the legitimacy of an institution rise and fall with the sexual composition of the body? Is there proof to support such a bold proposition? The answer of course is no. There may be such a concern but it is almost assuredly restricted to the faculty clubs of law schools. And as far as Justice Ginsburg being lonely? Justice O’Connoor is still alive. If you miss her, go to dinner or lunch with her and get acquainted again. Or here is the ultimate antidote to loneliness: walk down the hall and engage your good friend Justice Scalia in a debate about orginalism. If that doesn’t snap you out of your funk, nothing will. But if the sexual determinists are correct, then we have a lot of work to do in re making our public bodies. I would suggest the first place to start is the makeup of California’s Senators. About half of the Golden State’s citizens are men yet they remain unrepresented in the Senate. What kind of message are we sending to these poor souls? So maybe Senator Boxer or Feinstein can, in the spirit of sexual equality, resign and let the former Mr. Universe appoint a man to replace one of them.
Comment by Dennis Bedard — January 27, 2007 @ 3:49 pm
I’d basically agree with Dennis’ comment above. Adhering to my view expresed last August, I don’t know if there is a distinctively female point of view, but I’m fairly certain that if it exists, and it’s making a difference in how you’re deciding cases, there’s something wrong with how you’re deciding cases. I am still not sure, for example, what difference a Judge’s gender can make “to the question of whether the due process clause ‘prohibit[s] Arizona’s use of an insanity test stated solely in terms of the capacity to tell whether an act charged as a crime was right or wrong,’ Clark v. Arizona, whether a dam ‘raises [sufficient] potential for a discharge … [that] §401 [of the Clean Water Act] is triggered and [thus] state certification is required,’ S.D. Warren Co. v. Maine Bd. of Environmental Protection, … [or] whether ‘[a] refusal to apply the Federal Tort Claims Act’s judgment bar is open to collateral appeal,’ Will v. Hallock.”
Moreover, I have little doubt that those who urge the appointment of more female Justice — the need for a “more diverse bench” — wouldn’t welcome the retirement of Justices Stevens, Kennedy and Souter and their replacements with Judges Sykes, Williams and Brown. Why is that, if diversity is so important? Or is diversity only a secondary goal, usefull to browbeat an unpopular President, but otherwise subordinated to the need for five votes?
Comment by Simon Dodd — January 28, 2007 @ 8:59 pm