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Biden's SCOTUS short list

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
Ignoring the right wing indirect Harris bashing

Biden’s Likeliest Supreme Court Pick

...Dozens of candidates are being talked about, but nearly all of the Court watchers I interviewed for this story have their money on one in particular: Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Jackson, who is 51, fulfills a lot of requirements for the establishment set. She has the same Ivy League credentials as the sitting justices, having earned both her undergraduate and her law degree from Harvard and edited for the Harvard Law Review. She clerked for three federal judges—including Breyer, from 1999 to 2000. If nominated and confirmed, Jackson will follow the same track as Brett Kavanaugh, who also clerked for the justice he ultimately replaced. Also like Kavanaugh—and seven other current and former justices—Jackson would be coming directly from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the second-most important court in the country after the Supreme Court.

Jackson also has strayed from the typical route of a Court nominee, which matters a lot to Democrats, who have tended to prioritize experience over ideology. After a few years in private practice, she worked as a federal public defender. Later, she served for four years as the Obama-appointed vice chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, during which time the commission reduced sentences for many people convicted of drug crimes. Appointing someone with Jackson’s experience to the Supreme Court “would make quite a statement,” Brian Fallon, the executive director of Demand Justice, a progressive group advocating for court reform, told me. “It would signal a new era and a shift away from the decades-long default to former prosecutors and corporate lawyers.”Jackson does not have a history of controversial rulings. But in her previous perch as a federal district judge, she drew attention for deciding several times against the Trump administration. Most famously, Jackson ruled in 2019 that former White House Counsel Don McGahn had to comply with a congressional subpoena and testify before Congress as part of its impeachment inquiry into then-President Donald Trump. A particular line in the ruling impressed Democrats: “The primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded American history is that Presidents are not kings,” Jackson wrote...
 

anna.

but mostly it's the same
After a few years in private practice, she worked as a federal public defender. Later, she served for four years as the Obama-appointed vice chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, during which time the commission reduced sentences for many people convicted of drug crimes. Appointing someone with Jackson’s experience to the Supreme Court “would make quite a statement,” Brian Fallon, the executive director of Demand Justice, a progressive group advocating for court reform, told me. “It would signal a new era and a shift away from the decades-long default to former prosecutors and corporate lawyers.”

I like this.
 
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anna.

but mostly it's the same
Here's another, mentioned in your link and also here:

A top Biden ally has a favored candidate to replace Justice Breyer: Judge J. Michelle Childs.

Days after President Biden was sworn in last year, one of his top congressional allies went to the White House with the name of a judge he believed should be appointed to the Supreme Court.

The ally, Representative James E. Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina, told Vice President Kamala Harris and the White House counsel, Dana Remus, that whenever an opening emerged on the court, Mr. Biden should nominate a little-known federal judge in his home state: J. Michelle Childs.

Mr. Clyburn, who helped Mr. Biden revive his candidacy with a crucial primary win in South Carolina nearly two years ago, made a case that Judge Childs would not only satisfy Mr. Biden’s campaign pledge to appoint a Black woman to the court, but that the judge was particularly appealing because she came from a blue-collar background — another underrepresented group among federal judges.

“One of the things we have to be very, very careful of as Democrats is being painted with that elitist brush,” Mr. Clyburn told The New York Times last year for an article that revealed how he was pushing her for the court.

He added: “When people talk to diversity they are always looking at race and ethnicity — I look beyond that to diversity of experience.”


As Mr. Biden weighs whom to appoint to fill the seat of Justice Stephen G. Breyer, Judge Childs is seen as a potential contender — albeit an outside one — alongside two other possibilities: Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Justice Leondra R. Kruger of the California Supreme Court.
 
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Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
Ignoring the right wing indirect Harris bashing

Biden’s Likeliest Supreme Court Pick

...Dozens of candidates are being talked about, but nearly all of the Court watchers I interviewed for this story have their money on one in particular: Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Jackson, who is 51, fulfills a lot of requirements for the establishment set. She has the same Ivy League credentials as the sitting justices, having earned both her undergraduate and her law degree from Harvard and edited for the Harvard Law Review. She clerked for three federal judges—including Breyer, from 1999 to 2000. If nominated and confirmed, Jackson will follow the same track as Brett Kavanaugh, who also clerked for the justice he ultimately replaced. Also like Kavanaugh—and seven other current and former justices—Jackson would be coming directly from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the second-most important court in the country after the Supreme Court.

Jackson also has strayed from the typical route of a Court nominee, which matters a lot to Democrats, who have tended to prioritize experience over ideology. After a few years in private practice, she worked as a federal public defender. Later, she served for four years as the Obama-appointed vice chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, during which time the commission reduced sentences for many people convicted of drug crimes. Appointing someone with Jackson’s experience to the Supreme Court “would make quite a statement,” Brian Fallon, the executive director of Demand Justice, a progressive group advocating for court reform, told me. “It would signal a new era and a shift away from the decades-long default to former prosecutors and corporate lawyers.”Jackson does not have a history of controversial rulings. But in her previous perch as a federal district judge, she drew attention for deciding several times against the Trump administration. Most famously, Jackson ruled in 2019 that former White House Counsel Don McGahn had to comply with a congressional subpoena and testify before Congress as part of its impeachment inquiry into then-President Donald Trump. A particular line in the ruling impressed Democrats: “The primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded American history is that Presidents are not kings,” Jackson wrote...
Sounds good, from your description.
 

SomeRandom

Still learning to be wise
Staff member
Premium Member
upload_2022-1-27_15-42-29.gif
 

anna.

but mostly it's the same
Interesting thoughts on history prior to this impending SC selection from historian Heather Cox Richardson, who always brings a good read:

Clinton appointed Breyer to the court after President Ronald Reagan had set out to change the Supreme Court to reorder the nature of the country. From 1954 until 1987, the prevailing principle of the court was that it must protect civil rights, especially when state legislatures discriminated against certain populations. Using the Fourteenth Amendment’s declaration that all Americans should enjoy equal protection under the law and receive due process of the law before losing any rights, the Supreme Court stepped in to try to make sure that all Americans were treated equally before the law.

Americans who resented the court’s protection of equal rights insisted that the justices protecting civil rights were “legislating from the bench,” or were exercising “judicial activism” by changing laws that the people’s elected representatives had enacted. They insisted that the court must return to enforcing the letter of the law, simply interpreting what the Framers had written in the Constitution, as they had written it. That view of the Constitution would erase the expansion of civil rights—desegregation, interracial marriage, access to birth control, and so on—that the post–World War II Supreme Court had enshrined into law. Those who embraced this literal version of the Constitution called themselves “originalists” or “textualists,” and their intellectual representative was Justice Antonin Scalia, appointed to the Supreme Court in 1986 by Republican President Ronald Reagan.

Breyer is an intellectual counterpoint to Scalia. In a book Breyer wrote in 2005, he took on originalism with his own interpretation of the Constitution called “Active Liberty.” Breyer explained that we should approach constitutional questions by starting at the beginning: what did the Framers intend for the Constitution to do? Their central goal was not simply to protect liberties like free speech or gun ownership, he argued; their goal was to promote democracy. All court decisions, he said, should take into consideration what conclusion would best promote democracy.
I remember well from my conservative upbringing the repeated use of the terms "judicial activism" and "legislating from the bench." These were clarion calls to the right, she is spot on in noting them. This is the first time I've seen someone connect those terms with those who would restrict equal rights under the law. Wow. Looking back, it blows my mind that I was in that mindset without realizing what that mindset really was.

The comments under Heather Cox Richardson's daily newsletters can be an education in themselves, and one commenter named Lin had this to say:

'Originalism' pretends that the intent of the Framers can be divined and 'textualism' pretends that dictionaries are the last word on meanings. They are both lies, fabricated whole cloth to roll back progress on civil rights and government taxation to pay for social services. Lies in service racist populists and rapacious plutocrats.

There is no *letter of the law* there is only textual interpretation. And in every other field of textual interpretation, from Torah based Judaism to literary criticism, the always dubious notion of 'author's intent' was debunked long ago.

As Rabbi Hillel said, in the last days before the christian era, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is interpretation; go and study." Hillel also said "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And being only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?" This is an early expression of the ethic of reciprocity, the so called Golden Rule which the Founders translated into civic law by prioritizing the general welfare of the people.

As Jacques Derrida demonstrated, the meanings of words are not self sufficient units, they exist within a textual and linguistic context. In a social context. Words 'mean' in relation. Dictionaries do not fix words for all time, they trace the trajectory of meaning over social space. Please note, Derrida spent his life in social and political activism, including working on behalf of Nelson Mandela and in developing the South African archive to serve truth and reconciliation (which preceded similar American formulation of critical race theory.)

It is that Republicans prefer to interpret the Constitution to perpetuate the Founders' 'original sin' of legitimizing racism against Black people in the form of enslavement, now in the form of economic injustice. To do this, GOP Leader Mitch McConnell effectively opted out of the Constitution to pack the courts. Since Reagan, Republican racist right wing religious extremists, ably served by Federalist Society dark money kingpin and kingmaker Leonard Leo, kept their eye on the Supreme Court.

In 2016, left wing voters took their eyes off the prize, preferring to indulge in purity tests, pipe dreams, and pied pipers. In 2022 many are still at it - misinterpreting voting as a personal gesture in service of self expression, rather than a political strategy in service of social responsibility.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Ignoring the right wing indirect Harris bashing

Biden’s Likeliest Supreme Court Pick

...Dozens of candidates are being talked about, but nearly all of the Court watchers I interviewed for this story have their money on one in particular: Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Jackson, who is 51, fulfills a lot of requirements for the establishment set. She has the same Ivy League credentials as the sitting justices, having earned both her undergraduate and her law degree from Harvard and edited for the Harvard Law Review. She clerked for three federal judges—including Breyer, from 1999 to 2000. If nominated and confirmed, Jackson will follow the same track as Brett Kavanaugh, who also clerked for the justice he ultimately replaced. Also like Kavanaugh—and seven other current and former justices—Jackson would be coming directly from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the second-most important court in the country after the Supreme Court.

Jackson also has strayed from the typical route of a Court nominee, which matters a lot to Democrats, who have tended to prioritize experience over ideology. After a few years in private practice, she worked as a federal public defender. Later, she served for four years as the Obama-appointed vice chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, during which time the commission reduced sentences for many people convicted of drug crimes. Appointing someone with Jackson’s experience to the Supreme Court “would make quite a statement,” Brian Fallon, the executive director of Demand Justice, a progressive group advocating for court reform, told me. “It would signal a new era and a shift away from the decades-long default to former prosecutors and corporate lawyers.”Jackson does not have a history of controversial rulings. But in her previous perch as a federal district judge, she drew attention for deciding several times against the Trump administration. Most famously, Jackson ruled in 2019 that former White House Counsel Don McGahn had to comply with a congressional subpoena and testify before Congress as part of its impeachment inquiry into then-President Donald Trump. A particular line in the ruling impressed Democrats: “The primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded American history is that Presidents are not kings,” Jackson wrote...
I think ideology is very important....but not perhaps
in the manner that liberals & conservatives do.
I want constitutional originalism with an emphasis
on civil rights & liberty.
A criminal defense background is promising.
 

esmith

Veteran Member
I see this as a racist pronouncement by Biden.
He said he would only nominate a black female to the court.
Just my obnoxious $0.02
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
Any opinions on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson?

She was confirmed to the highly influential 5th circuit court not long ago. The 5th circuit is considered to be where many SCOTUS appointees come from. Her education and experience is highly positive and her perspective on the Court will fill gaps compared to other justices.
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
Interesting. I didn't know that.
here's some background

Because of this, the D.C. Circuit is often referred to as the second most powerful court in the United States, second only to the Supreme Court A judgeship on the D.C. Circuit is often thought of as a stepping-stone for appointment to the Supreme Court. As of February 2016, three of the eight justices on the Supreme Court are alumni of the D.C.
 

Shaul

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
The last thing we need on the Supreme Court is yet another Ivy League alumnus. Enough with the elites.
:mad:
 

Sand Dancer

Crazy Cat Lady
here's some background

Because of this, the D.C. Circuit is often referred to as the second most powerful court in the United States, second only to the Supreme Court A judgeship on the D.C. Circuit is often thought of as a stepping-stone for appointment to the Supreme Court. As of February 2016, three of the eight justices on the Supreme Court are alumni of the D.C.

Thank you!
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
The last thing we need on the Supreme Court is yet another Ivy League alumnus. Enough with the elites.
:mad:
Do you mean "elites" like Donald J. Trump?

As for myself, I'm reserving judgement pending questioning.
 
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