Shhhhhhh! If Bush finds out we want this guy, he'll nominate this guy:

If we have a moderate, what is everyone going to argue about?

Best (nearly) appointment ever:

I turned off my CD player this morning and NPR was talking about who Bush would want the next chief justice to be and who he might appoint to the court. I had a little panic attack and ran in here to check the news.

I thought for sure Renquist had died.

Doesn't Scalia have it in the bag?

They said that most conservatives want someone younger, but Thomas has said he doesn't want to do it. Those were the only two they mentioned because Bush has said that those two epitomize everything he loves in the Court. So, they didn't know.

We read some of Scalia's writings on constitutional interpretation in our Con law class... the guy scares me. I felt like I was reading something written by Alan Jones (our version of Rush Limbaugh).

Thank god the High Court of Australia employs sensible people. Even if 5.5/7 of them are conservative bastards... they're sensible conservative bastards.

You know, elevating a sitting Justice to the position of Chief Justice as was done with Rehnquist is highly unusual. Normally, a new person is simply appointed CJ when the old one dies or retires. Besides, the CJ has no more power than any other member of the court, it's a purely ceremonial position.

Does the court ever sit with even numbers? If so, the CJ doesn't get the deciding vote?

The number of members of the court has varied throughout the history of the country. It used to be that there was one justice from each of the federal judicial circuits, but it hasn't been done that way for about a century. Initially there were five associate justices and a CJ, and there have been as many as 10 total justices at times, but it's been steady at 9 since shortly after the civil war even though there are now 11 federal circuits plus the DC circuit. FDR tried to "pack the court" in the 30's by expanding the number of justices to 15, but the congress didn't go for it.

*edit*

This is a really good listing of the justices, and at the bottom of the page, it lists them by seat, so you can see how many seats existed at various times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ju ... ted_States

Cool. Thanks for the info... but it doesn't answer my question!

Let me try it this way. In Australia, the HCA sometime sits with even numbers. If the case isn't considered an extremely pressing case, you might get a court of 4 judges. Usually, in order to prevent a 2-2 split without result, the CJ will sit and in the event of a 2-2 split, he gets the deciding vote. So the CJ does to a limited extent have more power than an associate (we call puisne for the HCA - don't ask) judge.

It rarely happens though... and usually the full court of 7 will sit for the important cases where the law is very unsettled.

Oh, OK. That sounds kind of like how our circuit courts work. A circuit court usually consists of 7 or 9 judges (i'm not sure which or if it is the same in all circuits), but most cases are heard only by a three judge panel.

The Supreme Court always hears cases as the full 9 Justices unless one or more recuse themselves for personal reasons of conflict of interest or something. However, they all have equal voting power, so the CJ has no special rights or sway in making rulings. If there's a 4-4 tie, then the lower court's ruling stands.

cheers PD... I hereby nominate you:

PunkDavid CJ

with no deciding vote

Interesting... Just finished watching an episode of The West Wing. Instead of replacing a liberal and a conservative with 2 boring moderates, they went for one from either end.

"Who's going to write the stirring lone dissenting opinion?"

I've found that this debate about "is he a liberal/conservative" rarely makes any difference in the end. Even the most conservative judges become "activist" over time. This has happened in Australia over and over again, most famously with Gerard Brennan.

This was a guy who was very conservative throughout his first decade or so... and then realised that he won't be remembered unless he actually does something good for the nation. He's the one who wrote the leading judgment in Mabo, and became increasingly humanist until he retired in 1996 or so.

This is a good point, and it's worth mentioning that there are several judges that don't turn out the way the appointer attended--Earl Warren, John Paul Stevens, and David Souter, to name a few.

Yeah, hasn't Kennedy pretty much bitten Reagan in the ass?



MODERATE! Moderate! Not a damn, filthy liberal.

Not as much as Souter has bitten GHWB, or especially Stevens has to Ford. But you see, Ford was seeking to appoint one of the finest judicial minds of his generation to the court, not an ideologue intent on supporting the policies of a single party. So Ford DID get what he expected.


I AM a MODERATOR, not a divider.

FUUUUUUUUUCK!