A modest proposal

[unixronin]

A brilliant idea, actually, from Aziz Poonawalla in his City of Brass blog:

Keep in mind that the primary function of a SCOTUS justice is to interpret law and write opinions and dissents.  In this they do have a staff to assist them with research, but ultimately the reasoning by which they arrive at their opinions (or dissent) is the key trait we are ultimately trying to assess.  Thurgood Marshall may have been more of a seat of the pants type, but really not even his most ardent disciple (and Kagan comes close) will emulate him.

So, lets give our prospective nominees some homework.  Instead of Senators grilling the nominee from the same obsolete handbook of judicial activism BAD slavish adherence to our political views GOOD, how about every member of the Senate Judiciary Committee (Republican and Democrat alike) pick a recent (10 years) SCOTUS case and ask the nominee to write either a dissent or opinion on it, as if she were a sitting justice?

Unfortunately, this idea makes too much sense to ever be accepted.

Comments

[freetrav.livejournal.com]

The NY Times came out today with an editorial that says, basically, that SCOTUS blew it - and claimed that SCOTUS used revisionist history to arrive at their conclusions. They also made it clear that their position was that stopping gun violence by banning guns was more important than the Constitution.

I read the Times for one reason only - it's the only NY general news paper that writes for people who have more than a first-grade education. Politically, the Post suits me better, but I can't stomach their writing, which is pretty clearly for drooling mouth-breathers that move their lips if the word has more than one syllable.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

One wonders how they would react if we were to suggest that stopping hate speech is more important than their right to print anything without the prior written approval of a government censor?