SCOTUS
The Supreme Court of the United States won’t be changing in any meaningful way as the result of Justice Souter’s retirement.
Souter for the most part votes with the more liberal members of the Court. Obama will nominate someone like him, possibly someone a bit more liberal. And that won’t change the conservative skew of the Court. The only way things would change in the short term would be if the new justice was someone who by force of personality/intellect would influence Justice Kennedy, the Court’s swing vote, to skew more to the left.
5 comments:
In spite of the cries from right wingers (Socialism! Socialism!), pretty much everything Obama has done so far has been pro-corporation and pro-military.
This choice will be interesting. Personally, I expect him to put a conservative in there, and explain that he was being "pragmatic."
Progressives, stupidly, will believe him. Again.
my government teacher feels obama is "socialist" and I have let that filter into my blog a few times. I think Obama will go liberal though, on this one.
It seems to me that the definition of "conservative" has got more and more conservative since 1994.
Obama could choose a rather middle of the road pragmatist (like Obama himself, I'd say), and be stridently accused by the right wing of appointing a pure socialist.
As they say, "Seeing is in the eyes of the believer" - or something like that.
Words like "socialism", "conservatism", "fascism", and so forth have become so abused in recent years that they have ceased to mean much of anything.
"Conservative" and "liberal" don't mean much when it comes to SCOTUS opinions. Both "conservative" and "liberal" justices have tended to favor big government, federal solutions.
Of course, it is now considered a "conservative" article of faith to favor federal preemption in product liability cases... and a host of other areas.
Incredible.
He won't do it, but I wish Mr. Obama would choose someone who has actually practiced law -- someone who has simply gone the judicial clerk to government prosecutor to federal bench road to the Supremes. And I'm not talking about someone who raked in mega-firm partnership mega-dough for a year or too while waiting for the judicial appointment either: I'm talking about someone who had to sweat to make payroll. Who has seen a tort case after 1L. Maybe even someone who has been elected to public office.
Someone well-rounded.
But then I wake up.....
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