ABC is reporting that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been hospitalized and has had surgery for early-stage pancreatic cancer. Of course, I wish Justice Ginsburg a speedy recovery. Her illness is just a reminder, though, that sometime (sooner rather than later is my guess), President Obama (I almost wrote “president-elect!”) is going to have the opportunity to nominate at least one associate justice of the Supreme Court.
My own choice: Solicitor-General designate Elana Kagan. Dean Kagan is finishing a very successful term as Dean of Harvard Law School, where she was able to foster a new era of good feelings among the famously fractious faculty. This may be the most important skill a center-left justice could bring to the Court.
Her academic credentials are excellent. Her area of scholarly expertise, administrative law and the regulatory state, is timely in an era when the powers of the presidency are being sharply contested. And frankly, her lack of courtroom experience might make her a better choice for the bench than for the SG’s office, though folks with real Supreme Court experience (David?) might like to chime in on that issue.
So who is on your list?
TedF
Should that unpleasant day come, a 25-year old socialist.
She doesn’t have to die to open up the seat. She just has to retire. It’s been assumed for years that she would be the next retirement, since her health has been dubious for a long time.
She’s been a clear-headed justice, and it’s a loss for her to leave the court. A great deal of dignity, too — you don’t hear the nature of chest-thumping, aware-of-history claptrap so many other justices love coming from her.
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p>2. Elena Kagan is an interesting idea. I don’t know much of anything about her as an academic, but I’m sure she’s done good work, and her reputation as Harvard’s Dean is certainly excellent. However, I question whether her ability to make everyone like each other at Harvard will carry over to the Supreme Court. If she replaces Ginsburg, she will be starting as junior Justice, meaning that her primary duty will be to hold the door while the other Justices walk onto the bench. She will speak last in the conferences. She will be assigned the ERISA cases. It’s very hard for the junior Justice to do much about the culture — that falls to the Chief, and to the most senior couple of Associate Justices.
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p>Her lack of courtroom experience doesn’t bother me particularly. Frankly, that’s more of an issue as SG.
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p>3. There are a number of other women who have been mentioned as potential Obama nominees. Sonia Sotomayor is probably very high on the list. She’s the right age; she has lots of judicial experience; she has an inspiring life story (“Sotomayor grew up in the South Bronx. She was diagnosed with diabetes at age 8. Her father, a tool-and-die worker with a third-grade education, died the following year. Her mother, a nurse, raised Sotomayor and her younger brother, who is now a doctor, on a modest salary.”); and she’d be the Court’s first Hispanic Justice. Esquire went so far as to claim that she would “likely” be Obama’s first nominee.
this is quite interesting.
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p>I would not be at all surprised to see Obama try to break away from the pattern of appointing sitting Appeals Court judges (and I, for one, think it would be a good thing). Maybe not for the first appointment, but sometime — Obama will almost certainly have two appointments, and maybe more. And it cannot go unnoticed that there is an accomplished lawyer and practicing politician who is also a good friend of the president’s. That might be the one job offer that would pull our Governor away from his plans for 2010.
Just askin’
Harriet Miers
… Hillary Clinton sitting on the court. I do think, however, that Hillary Clinton at State is a stroke of genius on Obama’s part. I don’t want her to leave before she got started, so to speak.
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p>I’m not 100% certain that Obama will pick a women. And, frankly, I’m not sure (aside from the aforementioned Hillary) which women make sense, so I’ll refrain from that. I can see Obama picking another black man (or a black woman), if only to start the work of erasing the Clarence Thomas stench. A gut feeling: he’ll pick somebody he knows really really well. Maybe a law school classmate or somebody from Chicago school..
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p>Aside from all that: looking back, I’d have to say that with Ginsberg, and Steven Breyer, Bill Clinton did a truly truly phenomenal job. I haven’t always agreed with either of them (tho’, often, I have…) but I’m consistently blown away, time and time again, with the quality of their arguments and the precision of their writing. Breyer is the smartest person there, and is followed closely by Ginsberg. (I’m not a close court watcher, but I do like to surf opinions now and then, if the subject matter intrigues me.)
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p>Here’s hoping, actually, (and acutely) that no changes are made and Ginsberg stays on for another decade. Her absence would be a true blow and whoever sits in the seat will never, ever replace her.
Apparently she cut the budget for buying books and periodicals and converted some of the stacks into offices for professors.
That’s obviously a disqualification. Who cares about her views on the constitution; she cut the book budget!
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p>Also, legal materials are moving to all electronic — cheaper and instantly updated.
just offering a different perspective on the “very successful” dean and her “era of good feelings”.
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p>Reducing stack space does have a significant impact on the ability of students and professors to quickly get the resources they need, since getting a volume from storage may take several days. I’d have to check with my friend on this, but I believe the budget for electronic resources, which are usually equally expensive as print for academic journals, was also cut, so this wasn’t some cost saving digitalization, just a funding cut back.
due to the market crash, etc. It’s not surprising to me if the school is making cuts like this. Many libraries are. It is sad, but it is apparently fiscally expedient. Or so they hope.
from NYT.
Furthermore, why should a big loss in the endowment cause funding cutbacks? They still have $32 Billion left, that should be more than enough to run a University.