People who do not approve of what is printed in the Constitution always wish to claim it “evolves” into something else. The word for that is fiction and not legal analysis.
Thought for the Day
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
We need some DEI on the Court, not of “race, gender and whatever”, but of background and college. A couple of Justices that worked as a waitress, plumber, carpenter.. ect -who then went on to obtain a law degree from solid but non Ivory college would be perfect.
The practice of appointing Ivy League graduates who had done time on federal appellate courts appeared forty-odd years ago. The educational background used to be more variegated as was the professional background. Not necessarily better, but different. If I’m not mistaken, all but two nominees to the court since 1980 have had a degree (sometimes more than one) from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, Stanford, or the University of Chicago (the exceptions being Harriet Miers and Amy Coney Barrett). All but three have been federal appellate judges (the exceptions being Sandra Day O’Connor, Harriet Miers, and Elena Kagan). Kagan had been Solicitor-General so had argued in front of the Court.
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Sotomayor’s father was supposedly a factory worker and Clarence Thomas’ custodial grandfather owned a set of businesses which required you get your hands dirty (and insisted his grandsons do so). O’Connor’s father was a rancher; not sure what on the property.
What she did on the property.
Leftists used the courts to legislate since the early 1940s, and maybe further back than that. That’s how you got Roe versus Wade. That’s how you got Obergefell. If we can’t convince enough people to adopt a minority opinion through legislation as the founders intended it (thus preventing minority rule) we’ll just get some appointed-for-life judges to do it. Trump’s most lasting legacy may be to hand back power from the courts to the peoples’ elected representatives. Roe versus Wade was handed back to the states. There’s talk that Obergefell may get reversed when the case involving the clerk that refused to sign marriage certificates for gay couples and was jailed makes it to the Supreme Court. I’m glad to see the reversal of this attitude on the Supreme Court since I fear unelected appointed for life judges almost more than a dictatorial executive. Both are bad, but judges get to cloak their dictatorial decisions in a veil of legal jargon that claims “fairness” and that they aren’t legislating from the bench.
While there are many notable exceptions of brilliant lawyers being appointed to the higher courts, there is a cliche in the legal mines that the A students in law school become law professors, the B students are the really good lawyers because they are the most convincing because they connect with people and don’t get lost in legal minutia and the C students become judges. Many many years of practice have convinced me that that cliche has significant truth.
And recent events have certainly convinced the public of the irrelevance of Ivy League schools. The poster child is the most recent appointment to the Supreme Court.
[…] Is Only For Carlson, I Doubt If He Has Ever Believed In Anything Else – D. McClarey, J.D.The Constitution Doesn’t ‘Evolve’, That’s Fiction, Not Legal Analysis – The American […]