In a pleasantly surprising decision, the Supreme Court today held 5-4 (along predictable ideological lines with Kennedy as the swing vote) that West Virginia judge Brent Benjamin violated the due process rights of plaintiffs in a civil suit when he refused to recuse himself despite the fact that the chairman of the company appealing the […]
Scott Lemieux
Scott Lemieux is a political science professor at the University of Washington. He writes for the blog Lawyers, Guns & Money. Follow @lemieuxlgm
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TAYLOR: IT’S NOT JUDICIAL ACTVISM IF CONSERVATIVES DO IT.
Despite some attempt to cover himself with some concessions about how all nine justices are “activists” (although note that his mash notes to Alito routinely referred to him as a proponent of “judicial restraint”), when it comes down to it, when Stuart Taylor agrees with a judicial decision that displaces a policy preferred by elected […]
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THE CLERK TAUTOLOGIES.
Big Tent Democrat notes, with respect to Jeffrey Rosen‘s defense of his Sotomayor article, that Rosen’s attempt to use statements from anonymous sources to predict judicial “temperament” and its effects have a pretty dubious track record. An even better example of this can be seen in the work of Stuart Taylor. Consider, first, his use […]
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“IDENTITY POLITICS” REDUX.
Rather than giving up his transparently silly comparison of Harriet Miers and Sonia Sotomayor, Ramesh Ponnuru decides to dig a bigger hole. Although he concedes so much ground that I’m not sure why he’s bothering. (I concede the point: if you leave aside the many crucial ways in which the analogy is howlingly inapposite, it […]
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SOTOMAYOR AND JUDICIAL ACTIVISM.
I was just part of a conference call that the White House held with law bloggers. There are a couple of takeaway points that may be of interest to readers following the nomination. First, Obama cited three criteria in choosing Sotomayor: 1) her intellectual capacity (as demonstrated in her sterling academic record, her success as […]
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THOUGHTS ON SOTOMAYOR
A few random thoughts/links about Obama tapping Sonia Sotomayor as his first pick: It’s a good, solid pick. Not a home run like Pam Karlan would have been, but I also don’t think she’ll be another Stephen Breyer; I see another Ruth Bader Ginsburg at worst. For me, she would have been #2 among the […]
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CALIFORNIA’S BUDGET WOES.
Kevin Drum sums up the failure of the gimmicky initiatives that were intended to forestall California’s intended budget disaster: There are legal, judicial, federal, and contractual limits to how much spending can be cut, and there are political limits (i.e., the Republican rump in the legislature) to how much taxes can be raised. The sums […]
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WHY COURT DIVERSITY CAN MATTER.
With respect to Sonia Sotomayor‘s comments about the subtle relationship between diversity and judging — judges should strive to be impartial, but obviously cannot step entirely out of their backgrounds and experiences — Kerry Howley makes two accurate points: 1) they are entirely innocuous, and 2) Sotomayor’s comments will be inevitably misrepresented by Senate Republicans […]
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MORE ON ABORTION AND PUBLIC OPINION.
To follow up on Dana‘s post, a few quick points: Public opinion on abortion has been remarkably stable not only for the last decade but since at least the early ’70s. (Craig and O’Brien is a good source for pre-1995 data.) As Dana says, the direction of public opinion has been solidly pro-choice, although marginal […]
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THE COSTS OF DODGING.
In addition to some of his usual silliness about abortion, Ross Douthat‘s op-ed today defends Barack Obama‘s strategy of essentially ignoring gay and lesbian rights … from the imagined perspective of a supporter of gay and lesbian rights. The problem here, however, is that gay and lesbian rights comprises a lot of different issues, and […]