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ElenaKagan 20 - 19 Jun 2010 - Main.JonathanWaisnor
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| | Is anyone else disappointed with this nomination (from a non liberal/conservative point of view)?
I think it is terribly disappointing that we keep getting these Ivy League judges on the Supreme Court. Sure, Kagan has no "bench" experience, so in that aspect she is diverse. She is also female, which may be needed. But, she is still what at least 7 out of the other 8 are on the court: legal intellectuals. Frankly, I would have liked to have seen (and would like to see in the future) non-intellectuals grace the halls of the court again. There used to be a time when one did not have to go to an Ivy league law school to be on the court. Now, it is a prerequisite. And, I can't think of a nominee that would be a bigger intellectual than Kagan: law prof turned Harvard Law School Dean. But, I don't know the woman, so, maybe I'm wrong. | | | Let's get some non-lawyers up in there too. It would make ConLaw? way more fun. Imagine reading decisions by someone who never went to law school.
-- NonaFarahnik - 19 Jun 2010 | |
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> | I originally thought that Presidents selected for Harvard and Yale graduates because they predominated in the federal judiciary. When I looked at the bios of 108 Court of Appeals judges and the last 10 Solicitor Generals, it surprised me to learn that 86 of them did not attend Yale, Harvard or Stanford. Of the 86, about half attended other "T-14" schools, the other half went to their state or local law school. Whereas before I thought the Presidents were picking judges who happened to be from Yale, Harvard or Stanford because the population of people they are picking from is overwhelmingly Yale, Harvard, or Stanford- I'm now wondering if the opposite is true. Of course, the judges and lawyers I selected are currently practicing, I'd have to go back to when the longer serving Supreme Court justices had not yet been nominated to see if this held true then. But for picks made in the last two terms (3 COA judges, 1 SG, all from Harvard or Yale) the president seems to be selecting a non-representative sample in terms of alma mater.
So I'm left with many more questions as I try to explain this disparity. Are the resumes of those particular judges selected augmented by a lot of earlier federal government or academic positions they received as a result of where they went to school? Did those schools give them certain social or political connections that allowed the administration to more easily gauge their political leanings? Do those schools really produce a more intellectual or ideological lawyer better suited for the work of the Court? Does the administration actually expect that a Second Circuit judge from Syracuse Law would get asked by Congress why she didn't get into Yale? Or are the presidents just huge boosters?
I do know this much, the average person on the street is not concerned about whether high powered judges come from non-Ivy schools. I think they are more concerned with nominating people who are qualified for the job or will decide their way on key issues. The "relatability quotient" for a Circuit Court judge is very low regardless of where he went to school. So I don't think picking judges from non-Ivies is going to help a president politically in the short-term, and I can't see any other reason why they'd do it.
-- JonathanWaisnor - 19 Jun 2010 | | | |
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