Obama and the Supreme Court: Will He Play It Safe?

By Jeralyn, Section Supreme Court
Posted on Sun Apr 04, 2010 at 08:26:34 PM EST
Tags: (all tags)

Share This: Digg!

Taking a look at the names most frequently mentioned as a possible replacement for Justice John Paul Stevens who is widely expected to retire this year or next, prospects aren't looking good for progressives.

Elena Kagan and Merrick Garland seem to be at the head of the pack. Garland, now on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, is a former DOJ top prosecutor (Associate Deputy Attorney General) who supervised the Oklahoma City Bombing case. Conservatives would welcome him since he's known for siding with the Government in criminal cases and tough on terrorism. He's been called the Democratic version of John Roberts.

The third person who appears to be in the running is Judge Diane Wood of the 7th Circuit, who is considered more progressive than Kagan or Garland. (She, too, is a former prosecutor -- deputy assistant attorney general under President Bill Clinton.)

Republicans are trying to influence the decision already, promising "bruising battles" and saying Garland is his best bet. Why does Obama have to play it safe? He's already got his "signature issue" -- the health care vote -- behind him. He really has an opportunity here to effect some change, one that could last decades. I hope he doesn't throw it away. And can we please have someone who didn't spend decades working for the Justice Department?

< Easter Sunday Open Thread | Sunday Night Open Thread >

Legal

Nothing on this site should be construed as legal advice. TalkLeft does not give legal advice.

TalkLeft is not responsible for and often disagrees with material posted in the comments section. Read at your own risk.

Obama and the Supreme Court: Will He Play It Safe? | 65 comments (65 topical)

Readers Must Login or Create an Account to Comment

Just please not (5.00 / 2) (#8)
by Cream City on Sun Apr 04, 2010 at 10:02:58 PM EST

another Catholic. I know, I know, that they all will be like Jack Kennedy who had to say that he would be guided first by civil law, not canon law. But in a very Catholic city, I have seen too many DAs and other pols and lawyers not even realize how much their actions and words reflect how deeply that they have been inculcated.

And I say that as a former Catholic, one who does realize so often that you can take the girl out of the church, but it's very difficult to take the church out of the girl.

The court now is two-thirds Catholic, as I recall.

How about an atheist, or at least an agnostic? amid so many issues on the separation of church and state that needs reaffirming, and now.

Sorry CC, but I think this is a pretty offensive (5.00 / 1) (#9)
by andgarden on Sun Apr 04, 2010 at 10:07:09 PM EST

comment.


Sorry you think so (5.00 / 1) (#10)
by Cream City on Sun Apr 04, 2010 at 10:12:25 PM EST

-- but if you haven't been raised in it, you cannot know the effects. You could, of course, read the news lately, including the role of the DA in the Fr. Murphy case that is horrifying people around the world right now.


As far as I'm concerned, you're (5.00 / 1) (#13)
by andgarden on Sun Apr 04, 2010 at 10:18:40 PM EST

just digging a deeper hole. What about "no more Jews," or "no more Chinese?"

No, sorry. I don't go for that.


As far as I'm concenred, your usual (1.00 / 1) (#17)
by Cream City on Sun Apr 04, 2010 at 10:26:02 PM EST

incisive logic is lacking, if (a) you think it's okay to discuss some aspects of identity politics, the ones okay with you, and not others, and (b) even more so, if you think that these aspects are parallel in application of major issues coming before the courts these days.


Um, no (5.00 / 1) (#22)
by andgarden on Sun Apr 04, 2010 at 10:39:13 PM EST

Discussing identity politics is fine. Saying that you would like to have more Jews/Atheists/etc. on the court is also fine. Saying "no more X" is not fine. It rings of categorical prejudgment.


So it was just coincidence (5.00 / 1) (#23)
by Cream City on Sun Apr 04, 2010 at 10:48:17 PM EST

and not another sort of categorical prejudgment that in the recent major Supreme Court ruling on abortion, the "partial birth abortion ban" case that was decided 5-4, all 5 votes against just happened to be the 5 Catholic justices then.

Uh huh.


Your explanation loses its force (5.00 / 1) (#27)
by andgarden on Sun Apr 04, 2010 at 10:52:01 PM EST

when you consider that they were all appointed by conservative Republicans. By your standard, William Brennan himself would need not apply.


Your comment reaffirms (1.00 / 1) (#31)
by Cream City on Sun Apr 04, 2010 at 11:01:27 PM EST

that you really don't understand that politics is politics, but religion is religion.

It apparently would shock you to learn that most Catholics are quite conservative. The days of social-justice, liberal Catholicism are gone -- that was so 1940s-1950s. Those liberal Catholics are gone, too, to the grave or to other faiths.


I am not an expert on American Catholics (5.00 / 1) (#34)
by andgarden on Sun Apr 04, 2010 at 11:05:18 PM EST

but I would expect that measurement to vary considerably by how you define "Catholic."

There are tons and tons of "Catholics" in the northeast who are nevertheless quite liberal.


Sonia Sotomayor (5.00 / 2) (#36)
by Peter G on Sun Apr 04, 2010 at 11:25:37 PM EST

for example


I had her in mind, yes (5.00 / 1) (#37)
by andgarden on Sun Apr 04, 2010 at 11:27:54 PM EST

I await Cream City's insistence that Sotomayor either isn't liberal or isn't Catholic.


I await Sotomayor's first ruling (5.00 / 2) (#39)
by Cream City on Sun Apr 04, 2010 at 11:36:38 PM EST

on the next major abortion or birth control case.

I hardly am alone here, as I know from other threads, in not knowing how she will vote -- wise Hispanic woman that she was, as she has said, in her hearings.

Hispanic Catholics are the hope of the church, frankly, in that many still are in the social-justice tradition long since abandoned here.

However, that is more the Mexican Catholic tradition, which is not hers -- and the social-justice tradition does not encompass social justice on women's issues.

So we will see -- as I expect that you two also just may have seen Northeastern liberals who are not so liberal when it comes to women's issues.


May be a gender divide here methinks. (5.00 / 1) (#40)
by oculus on Sun Apr 04, 2010 at 11:42:32 PM EST

I agree that we should wait and see (5.00 / 2) (#41)
by Peter G on Sun Apr 04, 2010 at 11:50:08 PM EST

on Sotomayor, CC. My wife's background and point of view are very much like yours, by the way. Some of her family is very conservative Catholic, and some liberal. We have a lot of friends who are ex-Catholic, and also quite a few who are [otherwise] progressive "social action" Catholics, and I agree that of the latter, even the Catholic Worker radicals and Berrigan-ite pacifists, their views on reproductive rights range from pro to anti. Cases on that issue are few and far between at the S.Ct., of course -- less than one per year. Nevertheless, of utmost importance when then occur.


: Yes, you understand the oddities (none / 0) (#44)
by Cream City on Mon Apr 05, 2010 at 01:34:06 AM EST

and hypocrisies of even the "liberal" Catholics. I was raised to know them all, with one parent a strict "catechism Catholic" and the other educated in college in the Catholic Worker tradition. It was quite an education for us with that odd couple.
And your wife and I may be cousins.:-) A lot of my many cousins, especially those on the West Coast but also one now in Washington, D.C., are wonderfully compassionate people on many issues -- volunteering and donating and more for the poor -- but extremely conservative on many other issues.
And among my many siblings, interestingly, the most liberal have remained in the heartland. The two who became quite conservative, the only two who still actively practice Catholicism, are on the coasts -- one also in Washington, D.C., and one in the most liberal area of California. But both are rabidly anti-abortion and anti-women's rights on other issues as well. They still follow the advice on those issues from the pulpit.

This is wonderful. (none / 0) (#35)
by Cream City on Sun Apr 04, 2010 at 11:23:34 PM EST

What a shock. The Northeast is liberal! And by the tonnage, yet -- if a new definition of what is called "heavily Catholic" in other areas of the country.

This map just never gets old for you, either, huh?

Of course, the rest of us use it for a joke, not actually for a map.


: Oh that map is deliciously wicked. (5.00 / 1) (#42)
by FoxholeAtheist on Mon Apr 05, 2010 at 12:40:59 AM EST

No it doesn't. If 2/3 of the Supremes (5.00 / 1) (#64)
by bridget on Mon Apr 05, 2010 at 07:28:54 PM EST

are X = Jews, Catholics, Atheists, whatever, to say "No More of X" is an absolute Must. As is ... there are way too many Catholics on the Supreme Court. Scary.


That wasn't a hole. It was your blind spot. (none / 0) (#43)
by FoxholeAtheist on Mon Apr 05, 2010 at 12:46:23 AM EST

Why is it ok to discuss whether (5.00 / 1) (#12)
by observed on Sun Apr 04, 2010 at 10:18:24 PM EST

a nominee is white or black, male or female, but not whether he is Roman Catholic?
That's a distinction that matters!
Since the RCC is essentially issuing fatwas, I think the question is very relevant.


I assume you would object (5.00 / 1) (#14)
by andgarden on Sun Apr 04, 2010 at 10:19:19 PM EST

if someone suggested that there be "no more blacks" right?


I agree with Cream here (5.00 / 1) (#53)
by MKS on Mon Apr 05, 2010 at 12:13:58 PM EST

A person's religion can tell you a lot about that person, especially if those relgious preferences extend beyond inculcation in one's youth to observance as an adult.

Most of American politics can be understood by knowing the religious preferences of those involved....Sure, you can have atheist, free-market Republicans....But it was not until Reagan harnessed the Evangelicals that Republicans took power....Without them, the Ayn Rand types looked sophisticated--but lost elections....

With a Surpreme Court nominee, religion can make a difference....

What fascinated me was how the Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code really shook the faith of many conservatives and elicited a fierce counter-attack from conservative Christian apologists....It was as if in fighting a movie that popularized the Gnostic Gospels (among other things), they were fighting a foe as mighty as Darwin....

The opposition to the concept of Global Warming is largely based on religion--although that is rarely discussed.....One cannot over-estimate the role religion plays in our politics and....

The current scandal involving the molestation of deaf boys by a Catholic priest....and that letters were sent to Ratzinger on that issue, will be a big blow....and the response of conservative Catholics will be interesting...

And Cream is right about the Social Justice Catholics....The days of Liberation Theology and how powerful and empowering that was to the poor of Central America are long gone.....Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between conservative Catholics and Calvinistic pre-determinists....i.e., we are rich because we are chosen by God or are virtuous....Terrible shame.

I think one needs to take into account the religious views of a potential Supreme Court pick--to understand the likelihood that those religious views will be pushed on us all.


I'm going to have to use the term (none / 0) (#57)
by Cream City on Mon Apr 05, 2010 at 01:54:57 PM EST

"Calvinist Catholics"! So contrary to the teachings on the sacramental purging of original sin, but what you say is so true in the attitudes toward the poor, the needy, etc., of some of today's conservative Catholics whom I know. If those attitudes were held in the church in which I grew up, we sure didn't hear them then. Now, those attitudes tend to be trumpeted.

I don't know the likelihood, of course, that even some of the justices would push their religious views upon us all, as you say. I would have thought not, considering the great intellects and great grounding in the law of most of them. Then came the recent major ruling on abortion that split exactly along Catholic/non-Catholic lines. That the line could be called a political split, too, did not reassure that it was not the same line, somehow.

So I express my concern on the future court on such religion-related issues -- and not only abortion, as there are so many fronts in this war. As you note the current concern re pedophiliac priests, I would note that some case concerning this could rise to the high court, too.

(I have met some of those deaf men and others abused, here at ground central of that case, and they are not going away. Some have been active on this for almost four decades now -- it's just that the New York Times decided to get onto this now . . . and I begin to wonder whether it could have something to do with this possibly coming debate on the future high court.)


Four decades? (none / 0) (#58)
by MKS on Mon Apr 05, 2010 at 02:57:19 PM EST

What can you say about that.....

More and more, it seems like current organized religion in America is about self affirmation/validation, telling each other myths that justifiy one's social and economic standing....a reaction to fear of the rapid pace of change--change across-the-board in just about everything....

Jesus was a capitalist and loved the unbridled free market, etc.....How you can get that out of the four Gospels, I have no idea. But many Christians who fear their economic and cultural advantages are slipping away sure seem to believe it....And they say only liberals project their values onto Jesus.

Religion can often be more cultural than theological...but that seems so much more the case now....

Judaism can seem more cultural than theological....but Judaism is a minority ever-struggling to survive.....

And it seems conservative Christians now feel persecuted too.....but not in the traditional sense....more persecuted by the unkind and unaffirming facts of modern life....So, they seek relief via reactionary pushback against modernity....How different than Judaism's effort to survive through learning and education....But Christians have long held the reigns of power and think that by exercising raw power, rather than by out-thinking others, they can hold back the tide....

How will conservative Catholics respond to their belief they are being persecuted? More reactionary retreat from modernity?

I think more reaction against the Vatican.....A friend of mine, a practicing, liberal Catholic told me the Church was dead above the Parish level--the Bishops and Vatican did not matter.

And, the Supreme Court comes into the middle of this vast sea change in our life....and we need to know who the reactionaries are going to be....


: There is a reason (none / 0) (#59)
by MKS on Mon Apr 05, 2010 at 03:11:18 PM EST

social conservartives detest (read: fear) secular Western Europe....Without religious conservatives, America would look a lot more like Western Europe (France and Great Britian) politically and economically.....
So, godlessness means the....gasp, social welfare state....Ergo, the social welfare state means godlessness; thus, helping the poor means you are godless or on the road to godlessness.....
Twisted but true....

: Yes -- early '70s exposes (none / 0) (#60)
by Cream City on Mon Apr 05, 2010 at 03:32:10 PM EST

and extensive coverage was done on the abuse of the 200 deaf boys by Fr. Murphy in the early '70s in the media of the hometown archdiocese, Milwaukee.
Those stories were the sources for much of the backgrounding in the New York Times' recent coverage, although almost entirely unattributed.
It has been a long battle for the