Yesterday's decision will play no significant role in the ultimate decision about Judge Sotomayor's elevation to the high court. She will be on the Supreme Court by the time oral arguments begin in October, and will likely be there for the special September rehearing in the case of the film/ad about Hillary Clinton which the Court also ordered yesterday. No matter how much money the "Right" spends on ads and no matter how much nonsense Republican Senators spout about "original intent", "strict constructionism" and other code-words for "we don't like anybody Obama wants on the court", she will be approved by a clear Senate majority.
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This is a really terrific book out by Christopher Eisgruber, the provost of Princeton University (formerly a longtime law professor at New York University law school) called The Next Justice. It is as clear and crisp an analysis of what is wrong with the current charade we call the "appointments process" for the Supreme Court. He argues persuasively that all Justices use both ideological and procedural "values" in deciding cases. On "equal protection" he concludes: "The meaning of equality is fundamentally contested; judges cannot appeal to some uncontroversial standard of equality that exists outside and apart from competing theories about equality." Thank goodness that Judge Sotomayor understands equality in a way unlike the crabbed view of, say, Clarence Thomas.
Readers interested in hearing an interview with Eisgruber can go to www.cultureshocks.com for a listen.
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Easy reverend...chill, man.
Barry, I think your comments are on target.
Actually, I am always a bit confused about what Republicans really want. Do they want to follow some perceived mainstream of collective American thought on all hot topics or do they want a never-straying strict constructionist approach to the law?
I disagree with you, Rev. Barry, and Mr. Eisgruber's ethereal argument about equality and equal protection. The very definition of equal as "the same measure, quantity, amount, or number as another" negates the fact of a "controversial standard".
In the Ricci case, this is no different. The objective standard here was in fact the measured score on the promotional exam which was blindfolded to race. All candidates were given equal opportunity to obtain a passing score, thus no discrimination occurred in the certification of the candidates who obtained this benchmark.
Judge Sotomayor is a shoe in. She was nominated for the Federal bench by a conservative GOP President and now she is being renominated by a liberal Democrat President. What a coup! Republicans who vot against her confirmation will be publicly acknowledging that they make bad choices in their appointments, and they will be announcing that they neither need nor want any Latino votes in the next election.
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