Souter to retire from Supreme Court

[NorthSideSox72]

then its a good thing I'm not a constitutional lawyer

There is a school of thought that says, by nature, all Constitutional law is incorporated to the states automatically. I tend to agree, because of what I said earlier (states cannot directly contravene federal law). The whole argument is effectively moot anyway.

 

[Balta1701]

Link

The search for a Supreme Court nominee has been trimmed to about half a dozen candidates by top White House officials, and an announcement may come by month's end, two sources close to the selection process tell CNN.

 

Among the finalists are federal appeals court judges Sonia Sotomayor and Diane Wood, and Solicitor General Elena Kagan, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, said the sources, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak by the White House.

 

Women make up all but one of the top candidates currently being given serious scrutiny, the sources said.

 

Also on the list, a source said, was California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno. The 60-year-old Los Angeles, California, native was not among the early favorites mentioned by legal analysts and the media. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs previously hinted some of the names under consideration were under the political radar.

I'm not a fan of Napolitano for this position, don't know enough about Granholm to say. Its interesting that the moment the vacancy was announced, the right wing launched in to a smear/whisper campaign against Sotomayor that the press picked up on rapidly and ran with. Demographically, she's both female and would be the first Hispanic justice.

[lostfan]

I missed this conversation while it was going on, but I hope it's not another federal judge. That artificially limits the field to a fraction of otherwise qualified people.

 

It's like saying we want people to work in retail, but only if they've been a cashier.

Edited May 14, 2009 by lostfan

[Balta1701]

I missed this conversation while it was going on, but I hope it's not another federal judge. That artificially limits the field to a fraction of otherwise qualified people.

 

It's like saying we want people to work in retail, but only if they've been a cashier.

This won't be Obama's only nominee, so it won't be his only chance to put someone in who isn't a judge.

 

Know anyone who's hiring a cashier?

[bmags]

I'm pretty sure it'll be Kagan.

[Balta1701]

I made this point a few pages ago and people didn't seem to know where I was coming from...that John Roberts has been basically as far to the right as any justice on the court, maybe more so than even Scalia. The New Yorker runs an 8 page profile of him saying teh same thing and backing it up with far more info than I know as a passive observer.

When Antonin Scalia joined the Court, in 1986, he brought a new gladiatorial spirit to oral arguments, and in subsequent years the Justices have often used their questions as much for campaign speeches as for requests for information. Roberts, though, has taken this practice to an extreme, and now, even more than the effervescent Scalia, it is the Chief Justice, with his slight Midwestern twang, who dominates the Court’s public sessions.

 

Roberts’s hard-edged performance at oral argument offers more than just a rhetorical contrast to the rendering of himself that he presented at his confirmation hearing. “Judges are like umpires,” Roberts said at the time. “Umpires don’t make the rules. They apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules. But it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ballgame to see the umpire.” His jurisprudence as Chief Justice, Roberts said, would be characterized by “modesty and humility.” After four years on the Court, however, Roberts’s record is not that of a humble moderate but, rather, that of a doctrinaire conservative. The kind of humility that Roberts favors reflects a view that the Court should almost always defer to the existing power relationships in society. In every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff. Even more than Scalia, who has embodied judicial conservatism during a generation of service on the Supreme Court, Roberts has served the interests, and reflected the values, of the contemporary Republican Party.

[lostfan]

Obama to nominate Sonia Sotomayor as his pick, a Hispanic and a woman. Let the games begin. What are the odds of an arbitrary Republican filibuster?

Edited May 26, 2009 by lostfan

[Texsox]

/dreaming

As I said with Bush's nominations, political ideology should not play a role. Character should be the focus.

[lostfan]

Well, yeah, but realistically do you think a liberal is ever going to knowingly nominate a conservative, and vice versa?

[Texsox]

Well, yeah, but realistically do you think a liberal is ever going to knowingly nominate a conservative, and vice versa?

 

No they won't, I'm thinking the conformation process. What I have said before, with Bush, was he could nominate the most conservative, far right, person he wants, and that should not be a factor. Same with Obama.

[kapkomet]

No they won't, I'm thinking the conformation process. What I have said before, with Bush, was he could nominate the most conservative, far right, person he wants, and that should not be a factor. Same with Obama.

This is exactly what I was trying to say in another argument, I mean thread. The pick's political idealogy should have NOTHING to do with it. But of course, it does.

[lostfan]

I mean, it's a nice thought and all, but every judge is going to have an ideology to some degree. Too bad we couldn't have more Kennedys or O'Connors. But they both get criticized for not having principles, whatever that means.

[Cknolls]

Obama to nominate Sonia Sotomayor as his pick, a Hispanic and a woman. Let the games begin. What are the odds of an arbitrary Republican filibuster?

 

 

0.

[Texsox]

This is exactly what I was trying to say in another argument, I mean thread. The pick's political idealogy should have NOTHING to do with it. But of course, it does.

 

I guess I should say, unless the pick is a Communist or something crazy like that. But Bush should have been allowed to nominate, and have approved, a true, dyed in the wool, conservative, if that is what he wanted and Obama should have his choice as well. I'd rather focus on tough to know stuff like integrity, citizenship, honor, and character.

[lostfan]

0.

For the past 2 weeks they've been talking like they were in the mood to fight no matter who was nominated.

[clyons]

This is exactly what I was trying to say in another argument, I mean thread. The pick's political idealogy should have NOTHING to do with it. But of course, it does.

 

I'm not sure this was always the case, but it certainly is today--thanks largely to the current Vice-President of the United States.

 

 

FWIW, I've always heard Judge Sotomayer spoken very highly of, although before this morning, I had no idea whether she was "liberal" or "conservative." She was previously nominated to the bench by both Clinton and Bush I.

[Cknolls]

For the past 2 weeks they've been talking like they were in the mood to fight no matter who was nominated.

 

The Republicans have never had the fight that the Dems do or did over Justices.

[southsider2k5]

Obama to nominate Sonia Sotomayor as his pick, a Hispanic and a woman. Let the games begin. What are the odds of an arbitrary Republican filibuster?

 

So here is the big question... How much in back taxes does she owe?

[Texsox]

The Republicans have never had the fight that the Dems do or did over Justices.

 

Which is interesting when you factor in their campaign strategy of "activist judges". You would think the group that complains the most about judges, would focus more efforts on the conformation process.

[lostfan]

I think I've said this in this thread already but the idea that a justice only decides based on the Constitution is a fallacy. If it was that easy, we wouldn't even need to have a Supreme Court, or we could just have a computer do it.

[Balta1701]

For the past 2 weeks they've been talking like they were in the mood to fight no matter who was nominated.

Considering the attack campaign against Justice Sotomayer started the moment Souter announced his retirement, I think you're right, and I think that she'll have hte hardest time of any potential nominee. If she doesn't put on a Roberts-like performance in her confirmation hearings, then we're going to get the beautiful spectacle of 40 or so white males lecturing a hispanic woman for hours on end about the evils of abortion on the floor of the Senate. I think this will genuinely be a 58-41 cloture vote.

[Balta1701]

The appellate court judge who ruled against the MLB owners and helped bring an end to the strike of 1995? Sonia Sotomayer.

[Cknolls]

Obama to nominate Sonia Sotomayor as his pick, a Hispanic and a woman. Let the games begin. What are the odds of an arbitrary Republican filibuster?

 

 

Probably less than the Democratic filibuster of Hispanic Judge Miguel Estrada. Mainstream Media= The Republicans dare not filibuster an hispanic woman!

 

Miguel Estrada successfully filibustered by the Dems= MSM SHHHHHHHHHHH!

[Texsox]

The appellate court judge who ruled against the MLB owners and helped bring an end to the strike of 1995? Sonia Sotomayer.

 

The best

She had been nominated to the district court in 1992 by the first President Bush, but actually chosen for the seat by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat, who had an arrangement with his Republican counterpart, Senator Alfonse M. D’Amato, to share district court judge selections in New York.

 

And the worse

 

 

In 1997, Republican senators held up her nomination by President Bill Clinton to the appeals court for more than a year, because they believed that as a Hispanic appellate judge she would be a formidable candidate for the Supreme Court.

 

of our political system. But it is still the greatest on earth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[lostfan]

Probably less than the Democratic filibuster of Hispanic Judge Miguel Estrada. Mainstream Media= The Republicans dare not filibuster an hispanic woman!

 

Miguel Estrada successfully filibustered by the Dems= MSM SHHHHHHHHHHH!

Things I've also heard:

 

Sotomayor was actually a policy director under Stalin.

She's been arrested 4 times for trying to break in and burn the Constitution.

Every morning, she sprinkles her cereal with burnt babies.