/ Forum Index / Everything Obama /
You must be a member to post on the forums!
Author
|
Rating: 0 Topic: Where Sotomayor Falls On Court's Ideological Spectrum (Read 497 times) |
|---|---|
|
jwilkes
Posts: 966 
|
« Reply #0: Jul 20, 2009, 3:01 AM »
But GOP cries about the “liberalization” of the Court might be more than a little unfounded.
In May of 2008, federal appellate Judge Richard Posner and University of Chicago law professor William Landes created a system by which to assign an ideological rating to every single Supreme Court Justice going back to 1937. (Anyone who has spent time in law school will recognize Posner, a Ronald Reagan appointee who is quite possibly the most oft-cited judge not to be named to the Supreme Court in American history).
What Posner and Landes found was astounding: four of the five most conservative justices are sitting on the Supreme Court now. Justice Clarence Thomas topped the list with a conservative rating of .822, followed by the now-deceased Chief Justice Rehnquist. Then came Antonin Scalia at .757, Chief Justice and Bush appointee John Roberts at .740, and Samuel Alito at .740. Rounding out the top ten most conservative jurists on the Supreme Court was Justice Kennedy- the man who represents the swing vote on just about every divisive issue that comes before the Court.
On the liberal side, not one of the top five most liberal justices are on the court today. If you broaden it to ten, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sneaks onto the list at number nine. Depending on whom you were to ask and what data you were to use, the list might vary a little, but most would probably agree that John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer tend to be in line with Ginsburg, with the now-retired Justice David Souter (a George H.W. Bush appointee) is just a touch to the right of those three.
The AP ran a story in May detailing the similarity of Sotomayor’s apparent legal philosophy to that of Souter, the man she’s been tapped to replace. Though it's entirely possible (in fact, probable) that Sotomayor will fall ever-so-slightly to the left of Souter, it would be highly unlikely that she’d establish more a liberal record than either Stevens, Breyer, or Ginsburg. She’s almost certainly pro-choice, but has ruled against abortion rights groups in the past. She’s opined both for and against plaintiffs alleging discrimination.
Make no mistake, Sotomayor probably isn’t going to be fighting her way onto the conservative top ten list. But in all likelihood, she’s not going to be on the liberal side either. Her eventual confirmation will do nothing to shift the balance of the court. |
|
Guest-JoeMarkowitz
Posts: 6
|
I did a post on this same point a while back. Your analysis shows why the conservatives don't have a leg to stand on in opposing Sotomayor as too liberal. But their supporters will not be satisfied unless they could win a solid majority for overturning Roe v. Wade, so Republicans who want to curry favor with the right have to fight every liberal nomination to the court. But from the point of view of those who would like to make the Court more liberal, the fact is that Obama has almost no chance to do that, and he will not get one unless Kennedy were to retire, or one of the four extremely conservative justices unexpectedly dies or retires. That seems doubtful at least in Obama's first term. So if another of the more liberal justices (like Stevens or Ginsburg) were to retire, as seems more likely, the only thing that Obama could do to shake things up would be to appoint a real flaming liberal to the court, and that might nudge the whole court a tiny bit to the left. Or that might cause the conservatives on the court to dig in their heels even more strongly. Who knows? But Sotomayor is no Douglas or Brennan or Marshall, and it seems unlikely that Obama would go out on a limb for a future appointment and appoint another Douglas or Brennan or Marshall. Given these realities, there is no real political battle over the Supreme Court likely to happen for years. So pretty much all of the debate over Supreme Court appointments is just noise.
Joe Markowitz Website Link |
|
Guest-insomniac84
Posts: 1
|
embracing her is because she is pro-choice. You can be the most hard core conservative on every issue, but if you choose to be pro-choice, you are called a liberal.
"Her eventual confirmation will do nothing to shift the balance of the court. Except make it more conservative." |
Fraught with political concerns of the day, Supreme Court confirmation processes are very often marred by accusations of the nominee’s “extremism” on the part of the president’s opposing party. In Obama nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s case, Republican leaders have leveled one salvo after another, claiming the 17-year federal court veteran to be a liberal liability to the goals of conservative court watchers. Ranking Republican Senate Judiciary Committee member Jeff Sessions (R-AL) called Sotomayor, “out of the mainstream.” Former Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee went a little bit further: “Maria