Tag: Senate

On Biden, the Court, and what voters “deserve to know”

Joe Biden’s refusal last week to state whether he supports the Court-packing scheme advanced by several prominent members of his own party, and his insistence that voters “don’t deserve” to know where he stands on the issue, has drawn understandable scrutiny. Several commentators have attempted to dissect both the political cynicism behind the proposal and Biden’s strategy for declining to comment on it. (In particular, I recommend the first dozen minutes of this Commentary podcast as well as this op-ed by Gerard Baker in the Wall Street Journal).

I want to focus here on what the kerfuffle means for Biden post-election, since it seems very likely that he will win the Presidency next month. As Baker points out (behind a paywall, unfortunately), “even Mr. Biden—something of a procedural conservative—must be aware how grotesque the idea [of court packing] is. The prospect of a high court turned into an adjunct of the executive and legislative branches, staffed by black-gowned, forelock-tugging accessories to untrammeled political excess, must surely give him pause.”

Baker is right. Biden is too steeped in the Washington politics of the last fifty years to not be a traditionalist on this issue. Indeed, he has had three decades to reveal himself as a disruptor of court structure, both as a high-ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and as Vice-President. To be sure, he has spearheaded legislation that has changed court operations, and he bears heavy responsibility for setting the tone of current Supreme Court confirmations with his behavior during the confirmation hearings of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. But he has nevertheless conducted himself according to the standards of twentieth-century American politics: play hard, and don’t kick the game board over just because you think you’re losing.

The extremists in his party disagree, and are embracing the vision of converting the Court into an arm of the progressive movement by brute political force. This  development should concern all who believe in preserving the delicate balance between court independence and interdependence, and indeed the proposal is playing very poorly with most voters. (Perhaps in a nod to this reality, Biden himself finally stated that he was “not a fan” of court packing in a radio interview on Monday.)

Progressive extremists will certainly put pressure on a Biden Administration to force the court-packing policy into existence, especially if Democrats win the Senate in November.  And of course Biden, like any President, would feel some compulsion to support the legislative agenda from a same-party Congress. But some of the more senior legislative members of his own party recognize the inherent dangers (political and structural) of court-packing, and would likely try to to slow down any movement, especially in the Senate. Moreover, there is no significant reason to believe that his White House would simply be a vessel for extreme progressives. Biden is a wily veteran in Washington. No matter how he may project on the camoaign trail, he surely knows how to wield the levers of power behind closed doors.

Bottom line: A Biden Administration will not support court packing and will try to deemphasize it. Look for Biden to lean on Nancy Pelosi, and others who have been burned by aligning themselves with their intraparty radicals, for assistance in tamping down the extremism. Biden’s position may prove to be a last stand, depending on the growth of the radical progressive wing of the Democratic Party, and court-packing may remain as an issue in 2024. But a lot will happen between now and then, and the short-term likelihood of this terrible policy proposal coming to fruition is probably slimmer than it appears.

Turley on court packing

Jonathan Turley has been a voice for sanity among legal commentators during the tumultuous past year. His new op-ed at The Hill, which looks at the dangers and irony of Democrats’ court-lacking schemes, continues his tradition of strong and reasonable analysis. A snippet:

For the scheme to pack the Supreme Court proposed by Kamala Harris and others to work, there must be some kind of litmus test. Democrats have pledged to add new justices to ensure a bench that will vote to uphold or overturn cases as desired. Absent such promises, the scheme is a futile exercise. The whole point is to force outcomes like voting to uphold Roe. This rationale has reached truly dystopian levels, with former White House counsel John Dean insisting that, by creating a new ideological majority, Democrats would remove politics from the Supreme Court.

Litmus tests and the idea to pack the bench would not honor Ginsburg. They would instead destroy the Supreme Court she loved. It would obliterate an institution that has preserved the stability and continuity of our country. The Supreme Court has performed this vital role based on its legitimacy and authority with Americans that will evaporate if Democrats conduct litmus tests or pack the bench.

The whole article is well worth the read.

The political calculus: Who WILL be the Supreme Court nominee?

Third in a series of posts about the politics of filling the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

In my last post, I suggested that purely from the standpoint of conventional political strategy, the President should nominate Sixth Circuit Judge Joan Larsen to fill Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. Judge Larsen is reportedly on the short list, so it’s certainly possible.

But we also know that the President’s political instincts rarely align with convention. And if he wants a public fight instead of a better chance of an electoral win, he has other options.

I think he will go with the current consensus front-runner, Amy Coney Barrett. And he’ll do it not because of her qualifications — which are excellent — but because her nomination is likely to create the most short-term political chaos.

Continue reading “The political calculus: Who WILL be the Supreme Court nominee?”

The political calculus: Who SHOULD be the Supreme Court nominee?

Second in a series of posts about the politics of filling the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

In an earlier post, I attempted to flesh out the political landscape surrounding any potential Supreme Court nomination. With President Trump announcing his plan to name a nominee at the end of this week, I now turn to whom he should nominate from a strategic standpoint.

I note at the outset that this is a question of politics, not whether the nominee is necessarily the best fit for the Court. While all the likely nominees are well-qualified on paper, the President’s calculus is not (nor has it ever been) about the Court’s best interests. It is about making political hay. And that is the lens through which I approach the question.

I also leave aside the question of whether the President should decline to send a nomination until after the election. That is, of course, the overarching partisan game, which I explored previously. I assume here that the President will make a nomination within the timeline he has provided, that Senator Mitch McConnell will do everything he can to bring that nomination to a vote before November, and that Senate Democrats will do everything in their power to avoid that vote.

With that in mind, the most conventionally strategic nominee is Sixth Circuit judge Joan Larsen. As I have detailed elsewhere, Judge Larsen is a highly intelligent, thoughtful, and well-qualified judge from Michigan, a political swing state which will play a big role in the upcoming Presidential election. Beyond her qualifications, her nomination poses practical problems for Democrats, who do not want to be seen as opposing a female nominee — especially one who sailed through the Senate just three years ago when she was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals. Larsen is also popular among voters in her home state, where she was resoundingly reelected to the state supreme court in 2016.

By nominating Judge Larsen, the President would score a political victory no matter what happens during the confirmation process. If the Senate confirms her, Trump can claim victory, charge up his base, and score valuable political points among swing voters in Michigan. If Senate Democrats manage to forestall a vote, Trump can turn that delay into a high-profile campaign issue, deflecting attention from the Biden campaign’s efforts to focus the election on COVID and Trump’s personal behavior.

Judge Larsen is reportedly on the five-person short list under consideration by the President, so her nomination is very possible. And while the qualities of the nominee are secondary to scoring political points — at least to this President — her confirmation would be a positive for the country and the Court. There is little doubt in my mind that she would make an excellent, thoughtful, respected Supreme Court Justice.*

So who will be the Supreme Court nominee? I offer some thoughts in the next post.

* CNN apparently agrees. In a photo caption yesterday, they already referred to Judge Larsen as Justice Larsen.

How far can Congress probe the judicial thought process?

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Josh Blackman has a fascinating post (really, a series of posts) about the efforts of ten Democratic Senators to force two Eleventh Circuit judges to “explain” their involvement in Florida’s felon disenfranchisement cases.

The brief background is this: the Florida Supreme Court heard oral argument on a challenge to state legislation conditioning the restoration of a convicted felon’s right to vote on the payment of legal financial obligations. Two of the Justices on the court at the time, Robert Luck and Barbara Lagoa, had been nominated for seats on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Both Justices asked questions during oral argument, but were confirmed to the Eleventh Circuit just weeks later. Accordingly, neither Justice had any role in the outcome of the case.

On July 15 the plaintiffs, having sought review in federal court, requested that both judges recuse themselves from the Eleventh Circuit’s deliberations. The request was grounded on the fact that the judges had merely asked questions during oral argument while on the Florida Supreme Court, even though they had taken no part in the decision. (This was factually reminiscent of the Ninth Circuit case of Yovino v. Rizo, involving a judge who had voted on a case but died before it was announced; here, however, the judges did not vote at all.)

Professor Blackman had a very sensible take whether recusal was necessary in the Eleventh Circuit case:

Judges are allowed to change their views. And that malleability is a good thing. I would be troubled if judges walked into arguments with a set predisposition, that could not be disturbed.

Yovino demonstrates that a Judge’s questions during oral arguments, and even a conference vote, are not “immutable.” Judges are allowed to keep an open mind till late in the game. These preliminary matters are not enough to question a judge’s impartiality. The only decision that counts is the final order. Judges Luck and Lagoa did not participate in the Florida Supreme Court’s published decision. Therefore, they are not disqualified.

But it’s 2020, and legal arguments aren’t good enough for the political class. Hence, the subpoenas. Blackman’s take (which you should read in its entirety) concludes:

I have serious doubts about whether Congress has the power to subpoena a judge to testify about internal judicial matters. I think Congress could justify that subpoena as part of an impeachment inquiry. But a general need for information to craft legislation would not be suitable.

I am not a constitutional scholar, but that strikes me as correct.

Experiential diversity on the Supreme Court is a pipe dream — at least for now

Lawrence Friedman’s recent post lays out a compelling case for achieving educational and experiential diversity on the Supreme Court. He looks to the states for guidance, noting that courts of last resort at the state level frequently feature highly qualified justices who graduated from a wide range of law schools and who feature an extensive variety of practice experience.

It’s a tantalizing analogy, which works well in some states but doesn’t translate to the federal level. Still, there are glimmers of hope for more experiential diversity in future iterations of the Supreme Court. More below. Continue reading “Experiential diversity on the Supreme Court is a pipe dream — at least for now”

McConnell gives “golden gavel” to John Roberts after impeachment trial

After the close of the impeachment trial of President Trump this week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell presented Chief Justice John Roberts with a “golden gavel.” The token is ordinarily presented to Senators who have sat in the presiding chair for 100 hours. Roberts certainly filled that minimal qualification during his many hours presiding over the trial.

I recently took Elizabeth Warren to task for her trial question that crassly challenged the legitimacy of Roberts and the Supreme Court. McConnell’s presentation can be seen as only a slightly more subtle effort to politicize the Chief Justice for partisan gain. True, Roberts did yeoman’s work in presiding over the trial, all the while maintaining his busy day job (which only involves hearing oral arguments, writing opinions, navigating the personalities and needs of his fellow Justices, and managing an entire branch of the federal government). And in a different era, the presentation of the golden gavel might be properly viewed as a sincere token of appreciation. In this deeply partisan environment, however, it primarily exploits the Chief Justice’s participation to court favor with Republicans — a misappropriation of judicial goodwill for partisan gain.

 

 

“Myths and Realities” about Trump’s judicial appointments

Many politicians, advocacy groups, and journalists have written about President Trump’s federal judicial appointments over his first three years, with the dominant narrative being that he has transformed the judiciary by appointing more judges, with more far-right leaning ideologies, than any President in history.

Russell Wheeler looks at the data underlying these assertions, and finds the story to be much more nuanced. As with everything Russell writes, the post is worth an immediate and careful read.

California’s federal judicial vacancies come to the forefront

With certain federal district courts operating with a profound number of judicial vacancies, court leaders are increasingly going public with the need to fully populate their benches. The most recent salvo has come from Chief Judge Virginia Phillips of the Central District of California, who wrote a letter to Senators Lindsey Graham, Dianne Feinstein, and Kamala Harris, urging them to find ways to fill the district’s vacancies.

The Central District of California, encompassing Los Angeles and environs, is authorized by federal law to have 28 active district judges. The Judicial Conference of the United States recently concluded that in fact, the district needs 38 full-time active judges to meet its workload. But the district is currently operating with only half that number (and nine formal vacancies). The last new judge was confirmed back in 2014.

The Central District has one of the heaviest workloads in the country, as measured by weighted caseload filings. Will California’s Democratic Senators and the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Republican leadership do the right thing and fill those vacancies? As we enter another election year, it’s hard to be optimistic.

Surprise me, Senators. Do the right thing.

Grassley to return as Chairman of Senate Judiciary Committee in 2021

The Washington Times reports that Senator Lindsey Graham will step down as Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee in early 2021, and that Senator Chuck Grassley will again take the Chairman’s gavel. Grassley was instrumental in steering the Supreme Court nominations of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh through the Committee.