Another Bush Crony Nominated

[RawAlex]

Originally Posted by Linkster

Alex - actually the appointment of people without judicial experience happens a lot - the last was William H. Rehnquist

Agreed. But they are exceptiosn rather than the rule, I don't think there is much historical justification for appointing two judges in a row that have effectively no real history or experience in ruling from the bench.

This isn't even borderline transparent. Woman who has helped Bush for X number of years gets nominated for a very plum job (which she would only have to do for 5 years before receiving an insanely high pension).

They can't even keep the door to the back room closed long enough to get things done.

Alex

[Linkster]

Alex - actually the same year that Rehnquist was appointed, Lewis Powell was also appointed and had never been a judge - these were both in 1972.
Prior to that there were at least 30 others out of the total 99 that had never been a judge before taking the post on the Supreme Court so it is not unusual at all. Some notable Chief justices that were not judges before were Chief Justices John Marshall and Earl Warren.

Now you want controversy over appointments of friends - go back to LBJ when he appointed Abe Fortas - that was real cronyism and it was publicized so much that he resigned the court three years later.

This woman has some unusual things in her past that might make it a little difficult to pass the Senate even on the conservative side - as far as R v Wade - she refused to support the Texas bar Association's issuance of support for the decision back when the ruling happened originally. However she also donated money to Al Gores campaign (of course back then Texas was all democrat) back in 1988.

[Linkster]

Alex - BTW - even the first Chief Justice in this country - John Jay - was never a judge before sitting on the supreme court - he was President of the Continental Congress and then negotiated the Paris treaty which basically ended the Revolutionary war. And you want to talk about skirting issues - he was nominated by G Washington and 2 days later the senate confirmed him

[Toni KatVixen]

Originally Posted by Linkster

Alex - BTW - even the first Chief Justice in this country - John Jay - was never a judge before sitting on the supreme court - he was President of the Continental Congress and then negotiated the Paris treaty which basically ended the Revolutionary war. And you want to talk about skirting issues - he was nominated by G Washington and 2 days later the senate confirmed him

Yes, but he was also one of the authors of the Federalist Papers arguing for the Consititution, so who better to enforce it?

[Linkster]

Originally Posted by KatVixen

Yes, but he was also one of the authors of the Federalist Papers arguing for the Consititution, so who better to enforce it?

I totally agree although he only wrote 5 articles for the papers - and they werent very enlightening - he also was not very well liked by Americans for his role in the Treaty with Britain as he gave up everything that the revolution was fought for - but he did stick to strict constitutionalism during the three cases the court heard under him. The big problem back then was that the Supreme court was also the court that took the role of all of the present day district courts - and actually it was his refusal to be the Chief Justice a second time that caused the establishment of actual separate District Courts to relieve the burden on the supreme court - they didnt have cars back then so they had to go on horseback to different districts for cases