A New Court Term: Big Cases, Questions About the New Justice
Today is the first Monday in October, and so is First Monday, the traditional start of the Supreme Court term. The Court already heard one argument – in the Citizens United campaign finance case — but it had been carried over from last year, so it doesn’t really count.
In any event, continuing its trend from last term, the Court has further front-loaded its caseload — with nearly 60 arguments on its docket already. Fortunately, unlike last year, we’ll see many blockbuster cases, including:
- the application of the Second Amendment to state gun regulations;
- First Amendment challenges to national park monuments and a statute criminalizing the depiction of animal cruelty;
- an Eighth Amendment challenge to life sentences for juveniles; a potential revisiting of Miranda rights;
- federalism concerns over legislation regarding the civil commitment of “sexually dangerous” persons;
- a separation-of-powers dispute concerning the agency enforcing Sarbanes-Oxley;
- judicial takings of beachfront property; and
- notably in these times of increasing government control over the economy, the “reasonableness” of mutual fund managers’ compensation.
Cato has filed amicus briefs in many of these cases, so I will be paying extra-close attention.
Perhaps more importantly, we also have a new justice — and, as Justice White often said, a new justice makes a new Court. While Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation was never in any serious doubt, she faced strong criticism on issues ranging from property rights and the use of foreign law in constitutional interpretation to the Ricci firefighters case and the “wise Latina” speeches that led people to question her commitment to judicial objectivity. Only time will tell what kind of justice Sotomayor will be now that she is unfettered from higher court precedent — and the first term is not necessarily indicative.
Key questions for the new Court’s dynamics are whether Sotomayor will challenge Justice Scalia intellectually and whether she will antagonize Justice Kennedy and thus push him to the right. We’ve already seen her make waves at the Citizens United reargument — questioning the scope of corporations’ constitutional rights — so it could be that she will decline to follow Justice Alito’s example and jump right into the Court’s rhetorical battles.
In short, it’s the first day of school and I’m excited.
Filed under: Government and Politics; Law and Civil Liberties
‘We Don’t Put Our First Amendment Rights In the Hands of FEC Bureaucrats’
I (and several colleagues) have blogged before about Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the latest campaign finance case, which was argued this morning at the Supreme Court. The case is about much more than whether a corporation can release a movie about a political candidate during an election campaign. Indeed, it goes to the very heart of the First Amendment, which was specifically created to protect political speech—the kind most in danger of being censored by politicians looking to limit the appeal of threatening candidates and ideas.
After all, hard-hitting political speech is something the First Amendment’s authors experienced firsthand. They knew very well what they were doing in choosing free and vigorous debate over government-filtered pablum. Moreover, persons of modest means often pool their resources to speak through ideological associations like Citizens United. That speech too should not be silenced because of nebulous concerns about “level playing fields” and speculation over the “appearance of corruption.” The First Amendment simply does not permit the government to handicap speakers based on their wealth, or ration speech in a quixotic attempt to equalize public debate: Thankfully, we do not live in the world of Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron!
A few surprises came out of today’s hearing, but not regarding the ultimate outcome of this case. It is now starkly clear that the Court will rule 5-4 to strike down the FEC’s attempt to regulate the Hillary Clinton movie (and advertisements for it). Indeed, Solicitor General Elena Kagan — in her inaugural argument in any court — all but conceded that independent movies are not electioneering communications subject to campaign finance laws. And she reversed the government’s earlier position that even books could be banned if they expressly supported or opposed a candidate! (She went on to also reverse the government’s position on two other key points: whether nonprofit corporations (and perhaps small enterprises) could be treated differently than large for-profit business, and what the government’s compelling interest was in prohibiting corporations from using general treasury funds on independent political speech.)
Ted Olson, arguing for Citizens United, quickly recognized that he had his five votes, and so pushed for a broader opinion. That is, the larger — and more interesting — question is whether the Court will throw out altogether its 16-year-old proscription on corporations and unions spending their general treasury funds on political speech. Given the vehement opposition to campaign finance laws often expressed by Justices Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas, all eyes were on Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito, in whose jurisprudence some have seen signs of judicial “minimalism.” The Chief Justice’s hostility to the government’s argument — “we don’t put our First Amendment rights in the hands of FEC bureaucrats” — and Justice Alito’s skepticism about the weight of the two precedents at issue leads me to believe that there’s a strong likelihood we’ll have a decision that sweeps aside yet another cornerstone of the speech-restricting campaign finance regime.
Filed under: Government and Politics; Law and Civil Liberties
Sotomayor Confirmed, Constitutional Debate Continues
All Americans should take pride in seeing our first Hispanic Supreme Court justice (not counting Benjamin Cardozo). While this moment should have belonged to Miguel Estrada—who was denied even a vote by an unprecedented Democratic filibuster—we should nevertheless celebrate Sonia Sotomayor’s rise from very humble beginnings to reach the highest court in the land. Although her selection represents the very worst of racial politics—she is not a leading light of the judiciary and would not have been considered had she not been a Hispanic woman—her career achievements show that the American Dream endures.
What makes the American Dream possible, however, is the rule of law, which in this country is ultimately guaranteed by the Constitution. The Constitution provides for a very specific government structure, with checks on each branch’s powers designed to maximize liberty and eliminate arbitrary and capricious rule. To that end, officers of the judicial branch—judges—are to make their decisions irrespective of the race, religion, or riches of those who come before them. And judges are to interpret the Constitution as written text. If they set aside the text and rule based on their own notions of fairness, then they act as unelected legislators or, worse, extra-constitutional amenders of our founding document.
Nominee Sotomayor knew all this, which is why the testimony she gave at her confirmation hearings disclaimed many of her previous speeches and writings, even going so far as to reject President Obama’s “empathy” standard—the idea that a judge applies the law differently when a litigant is sympathetic in some politically correct way. While she was evasive most of the time—reason enough to vote against her—when she did say something about judicial philosophy, it was often indistinguishable from the words of John Roberts or Samuel Alito (as evidenced by the frustration of left-wing commentators). And for good reason: in poll after poll, the American people overwhelmingly support a vision of the judicial role as one of enforcing the law as written, not of imposing their own policy preferences or vision of justice.
Kudos from this exercise go to those Republicans whose hard questions and thoughtful statements elevated the discussion of the Constitution beyond mere abstractions, so Americans could better understand the significance of ideological differences over the judicial role, or the use of foreign law in interpreting the Constitution, or property rights, or employment discrimination. In walking away from so many controversial positions, Sonia Sotomayor established a new standard to which all future nominees will at least have to pay lip service. While confirmation was almost a foregone conclusion from the start because of the Democrats’ strong Senate majority, the Republicans played well the cards they had been dealt by engaging in a serious discussion about constitutional interpretation and jurisprudential philosophy.
Filed under: Government and Politics; Law and Civil Liberties
Sotomayor Doesn’t Deserve a Supreme Court Seat
Having sat through the entire gavel-to-gavel coverage of last week’s confirmation hearings, I still don’t know if I would vote to confirm Sonia Sotomayor if I were a senator, I really don’t. Deciding how to vote on this is more than a simple matter of deciding whether she is “qualified” to sit on the Supreme Court—which is hard enough given there is no fixed qualification standard.
It also has to include how much deference you want to give the president, in general terms but also taking into account that Sotomayor will likely be confirmed and you want to position yourself politically for the next nominee. And it has to include, of course, how your constituents feel; while it’s cowardly to follow opinion polls blindly, you are accountable to those who sent you to Washington. There are many other considerations, both political and legal.
But I’m not a senator—or even a senator’s aide—so I don’t have to make that decision. As a constitutional lawyer, however, I can say that—even as most of Sotomayor’s opinions are uncontroversial—it is impossible to overlook the short thrift the judge gave to the judicial process in Ricci v. DeStefano and Didden v. Port Chester. I am similarly hard-pressed to accept hearing-seat conversions that contradict over 15 years of speeches and articles: most notably against the idea that judges’ ethnic backgrounds—and even “physiological differences”—should affect their rulings.
Given Sotomayor’s repeated past rejection of the idea that law is or should be objective, stable, or discernible from written text, her inability during her testimony to explain her judicial philosophy—or even state her position on important cases and issues beyond an acceptance of precedent (by which she would no longer be bound in her new role)—leaves me with an abiding concern about the damage she could do to the rule of law in this country. Because of the nominee’s evasion, obfuscation, and doubletalk, I like her less now than I did before the hearings.
And so, on second thought, I do know how I would vote. During John Roberts’s confirmation hearings, Sen. Dick Durbin said that “no one has a right to sit on the Supreme Court” and that the “burden of proof for a Supreme Court justice is on the nominee.” I will follow this very apt “burden of proof” paradigm and respect the logic of Sen. Arlen Specter, the Republican-turned-Democrat former judiciary committee chairman who at President Clinton’s impeachment trial curiously evoked Scottish law to vote “not proven.” Given the impropriety of citing foreign law (another issue on which the nominee failed to explain her “conversion” in hearing testimony), I would vote that the case for confirming Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court is “not proven”—under American law.
Filed under: Government and Politics; Law and Civil Liberties
Sotomayor Playing Out the Clock
As she began to do more and more yesterday, the nominee has started today’s hearings with a series of painfully drawn-out non-answers to Senator Kyl’s questions.
Kyl is pointing out the conflict between Sotomayor’s claim that in Ricci she was simply following precedent and the Supreme Court’s finding that there was no precedent on point—and so Sotomayor’s panel summary disposition was improper.
Sotomayor’s responses have ranged from explaining again the procedural posture of the case, to references to irrelevant background cases (not binding precedent), to recounting en banc voting procedures in the Second Circuit. It is clear that, even as the Republicans reload and regroup at every break and recess, Sotomayor has been counseled to talk and talk—again, in an excruciatingly slow rate—without really saying anything.
CP Townhall
Lack of Deep Thinking = Belief in the Living Constitution?
In a twist on the “lack of deep thinking” idea, part of what might be going on in Sotomayor’s head—why she keeps answering questions about judicial philosophy with reference to precedent rather than constitutional first principles is because she’s not an originalist. How can we hope for her to tell us her understanding of the meaning of the constitutional text, after all, if that text’s meaning changes with the times?
For example, Stuart Smalley Al Franken asked Sotomayor point blank, “do you believe the right to privacy includes the right to have an abortion?” The nominee began here response with: “The Court has said….” That is, it is not the Constitution—whatever your view of it may be, whether you think it contains a right to abortion or not—that is the supreme law of the land, but what nine black-robed philosopher-kings say. Of course, if your (non-)theory of constitutional interpretation is to keep “improving” the document—and to keep one step ahead of public opinion, so judges can effect social “progress”—then it’s irrelevant what the Constitution said before the Supreme Court put its gloss on it.
And if you subscribe to this “living Constitution” or “active liberty” theory, then naturally the life experiences of a “wise Latina,” along with lessons from foreign and international law—which, Sotomayor said as recently as her April speech to ACLU, get a judge’s “creative juices flowing”—are all valid parts of your jurisprudential toolkit.
CP Townhall
Sotomayor Displays a Lack of Deep Thinking
It strikes me that Sotomayor has been fairly forthright in her responses to questioning, not hiding too much behind the tired cliché that she can’t answer a question because it could lead to prejudging a case—certainly far less than Ruth Bader Ginsburg and even John Roberts. Still, on several important issues, such as property rights, national security law, abortion, and even her overall judicial philosophy, she has appeared disingenuous in saying that she has no firm views on the subject—hiding behind precedent again and again as if first principles didn’t exist. In other words, she says a lot—displaying a broad knowledge of cases and legal doctrine—without answering larger questions. She answers questions about what the law should be with what the law is, questions about what the Constitution says with what the Supreme Court has said about the Constitution.
This would be barely appropriate for a nominee to a lower court, who is, of course, bound by precedent. But senators rightly want to know a Supreme Court nominee’s preferred legal theories, what her view of the Constitution is unencumbered by others’ attempts to interpret that document.
The more Sotomayor speaks, the more it becomes clear that these types of nonanswers, this inability to see (or lack of desire to express) a big picture view, is her own essence. It continues a pattern that is evident from her judicial opinions, which are mostly unremarkable and, in the neutral sense of that term, unimpressive. For all her career success and a personal story we should all celebrate, she is an average judge who apparently gives little thought to the broad swath of law and where her rulings fit into that.
That is, Sonia Sotomayor is not a Cass Sunstein or Larry Tribe or Elana Kagan or (fellow circuit judge) Diane Wood. She is not a scholar or an ideologue. Her liberality is reflexive and warmed-over, a product of the post-modern educational environment that formed her in the 1970s—complete with ethnic activism—but not an intellectual edifice. This does not mean she isn’t a danger to liberty and the rule of law, or that her votes and opinions won’t harm the Constitution. But it does indicate that, for all her bluster about being a “wise Latina,” she is little more than a left-leaning empty robe.
CP Townhall
Sotomayor Waffles on Property Rights
The hearing began after lunch with Senator Grassley probing Sotomayor’s views on Kelo v. New London and the Fifth Amendment’s protection of property right—one of the questions I would ask her. The nominee apparently thought the senator (who’s not a lawyer) needed a lesson in what went on in Kelo and how the Court ruled. Grassley, having been briefed by counsel, didn’t seem to care for that, pushing Sotomayor on whether she thought Kelo was correctly decided and how she views constitutional property rights generally.
Sotomayor said Kelo was a judgment of the Court that she accepts, but that any future case she would have to judge on its own merits. Well, of course, but that wasn’t the question on the table. Exasperated, Grassley asked Sotomayor whether a taking with no compensation would be constitutional. The “wise Latina” couldn’t formulate a proper response, smiling and explaining that what constitutes a “taking” is subject to legal analysis. Well, yes, but that still doesn’t answer the question. Finally, Sotomayor concluded that if a taking violated the Constitution, she would have to strike it down.
In short, according to Sotomayor, if something is unconstitutional, a judge can’t allow it. The technical term we lawyers use for this kind of sophisticated reasoning is “circular”—with the judge here getting to decide based on no discernible criteria whether something is constitutional. For more on the outrageous takings Judge Sotomayor has allowed, see George Mason law professor Ilya Somin’s analysis of the Didden v. Port Chester case. (Somin, also a Cato adjunct scholar, will be testifying at the hearings later this week.)
Update: Sotomayor and “Secret Law”
Sotomayor didn’t have much to say in response to Senator Feingold’s inquiries regarding national security law and civil liberties post-9/11, but the Wisconsin lawmaker’s questions about “secret law”—on which he didn’t press the nominee’s non-answers—made me think of the following: Both Ricci (the infamous firefighters race discrimination case) and Didden were “unpublished” summary dispositions.
If Sotomayor had not been nominated to the Supreme Court, causing hundreds if not thousands of lawyers to comb through her judicial opinions, would anyone have uncovered these blatant attempts to sweep controversial legal issues under the rug? Are Ricci and Didden Sotomayor’s secret law?
CP Townhall
Update on the Sotomayor Hearings
After yesterday’s bloviating—much reduced by Joe Biden’s departure from the committee—today we’ve gotten into some good stuff. Sotomayor is obviously well-prepared. She speaks in measured, dulcet tones, showing little emotion.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Leahy gave her the opportunity to explain herself on Ricci and on the “wise Latina” comment—which she has repeated in public speeches at least six times going back 15 years—and then built up the nominee’s background as a prosecutor and trial judge. Ranking Member Sessions and Senator Hatch (himself a former chairman of the committee) pounded Sotomayor on Ricci, asking her how she reconciles a race-based decision with clear Supreme Court precedent—and how her panel decided the case in two paragraphs despite the weighty statutory and constitutional questions.
Sessions in particular pointed out the inconsistency between her statement yesterday that she was guided by “fidelity to the law” and her history of calling the appellate courts as being the place where “policy is made” and profession of inability to find an objective approach of the law divorced from a judge’s ethnicity or gender. Sotomayor’s responses were not convincing; rather than agreeing with Justice O’Connor’s statement that a wise old man and a wise old woman would come out the same way on the law, the “wise Latina” comment plainly means the exact opposite.
And so the back-and-forth continues. One refreshing thing I will note is that only twice has the nominee said she can’t answer a question or elaborate on a response: on abortion, saying Griswold, Roe, and Casey are settled law; and on guns, declining to discuss whether the constitutional right to bear arms can be used to strike down state (as opposed to federal) laws. The former is a clear—but not unexpected—cop-out because, unlike a lower court judge, the Supreme Court justice revisits the nature and scope of rights all the time. The latter is actually the correct response in light of the three cert petitions pending before the Court in the latest round of Second Amendment litigation. Still, her discussion of the Second Amendment left much to be desired given her ruling in Maloney; as Jillian Bandes pointed out recently, you can’t discuss incorporation without a solid understanding of Presser.
CP Townhall
Opening Day at Judiciary Park: Sotomayor On Deck
The first day of the Sotomayor hearings yielded many baseball references but little in the way of home runs and strikeouts—or surprises. Democrats lauded Sotomayor’s rags-to-riches story and career achievements. Republicans questioned the “wise Latina’s” commitment to objectivity, whether she would be a “judicial activist” and—most interesting to me—whether she planned to use foreign law in helping her to interpret the Constitution. These would clearly be the lines of attack and counterattack.
It was all “set pieces”—prepared statements that often said more about the senators themselves than about the nominee. The stars of the show were unquestionably Senators Sessions (R-AL), Graham (R-SC), and Franken (D-SNLMN). Sessions, the ranking member, is armed for bear and has clearly been reading the memos my colleagues around town have been writing. Graham marches to his own (very candid) drummer, pronouncing that Sotomayor would be confirmed unless she had a “complete meltdown.” Franken… well he’s just happy to be on the big stage on his sixth day in office.
Assuming Sotomayor is confirmed, however, this will not be that big a political victory for President Obama. With Democrats holding a 60-40 margin in the Senate, confirmation has long been expected, and the political markets have already discounted for it. The president will likely see a temporary blip of support, particularly among Hispanics, but not as much as one might think—because those who are high on Sotomayor already support Obama. Moreover, most people will soon forget the Supreme Court and go back to worrying about their personal economic situation—which the president’s policies are certainly not helping.
In a way, this week’s hearings and the confirmation process generally have more downside potential for the administration than upside. Not because of the small chance Sotomayor won’t get confirmed—which would be a real blow—but because issues such as affirmative action, property rights, gun rights, and the use of foreign law are all being thrust to the forefront of the news cycle. These issues, and the debate over judicial philosophy generally, are all winners for the Republicans—if they play their cards right.
In any event, tomorrow the real fun begins—with the blue team tossing softballs at the nominee and the red team sending the high heat.
Filed under: Government and Politics; Law and Civil Liberties
The Sotomayor Hearings
Nothing has changed in the six short weeks since Sonia Sotomayor was nominated to the Supreme Court: she remains a symbol of the racial politics she embraces. While we celebrate her story and professional achievements, we must realize that she — an average federal judge with a passel of unimpressive decisions — would not even be part of the conversation if she weren’t a Hispanic woman.
As Americans increasingly call for the abolition of affirmative action, Sotomayor supports racial preferences. As poll after poll shows that Americans demand that judges apply the law as written, the “wise Latina” denies that this is ever an objective exercise and urges judges to view cases through ethnic and gender lenses.
At next week’s hearings, Sotomayor will have to answer substantively for these and other controversial views — and for outrageous rulings on employment discrimination, property rights, and the Second Amendment. To earn confirmation, she must satisfy the American people that, despite her speeches and writings, she plans to be a judge, not a post-modern ethnic activist. After all, a jurisprudence of empathy is the antithesis of the rule of law.
The Ricci Ruling: A Victory for Merit over Racial Politics
Ricci is a victory for merit over racial politics—which is appropriate given that the ruling overturns a lower court panel that included Sonia Sotomayor.
In the blockbuster decision we’d been awaiting all term, the Court reached the correct result: The government can’t make employment decisions based on race. While the city’s desire to get more blacks into leadership positions at the fire department is commendable, it cannot pursue this goal by denying promotions simply because those who earned them happen to have an inconvenient skin color.
This ruling is the latest in a series of steps the Court has taken to strike down race-conscious actions that violate individual rights—and thus is a blow both to the Obama administration (which sided with the city in Ricci) and to the nomination of Judge Sotomayor. Those who bring cases before the courts deserve much more than empathy or even “sympathy”—the word Justice Ginsburg uses in her dissent—they deserve equal treatment under the law.
Supreme Court Rules on Ricci v. DeStefano
In its opinion today in Ricci v. DeStefano, the Supreme Court came down solidly for upholding the equal protection of the law.
The political implications of this decision for the Sotomayor nomination are several, but her refusal to wrestle with the important issues at stake and to side summarily with the city, together with her many statements off the bench about “identity politics,” should make for very interesting confirmation hearings just two weeks ahead.
The Court reversed the decision of the Second Circuit panel on which Judge Sonya Sotomayor sat, which had upheld, summarily, the lower court’s decision to allow the city of New Haven to throw out the results of a racially neutral promotion exam for city firefighters after whites did better than blacks on the exam.
As the Court said, all the evidence suggests that the city rejected the test results because the higher scoring candidates were white. The city’s rationale for engaging in this intentional discrimination was to avoid a suit by black firefighters. But the city could take the position it did only if there were strong evidence that its test was racially biased or not job related or that there was some other equally valid non-discriminatory test that the city refused to administer. There was no such evidence, the Court concluded. Had the city been sued by the black firefighters, it would have won.
Thus, it’s rationale for throwing out the test results will not withstand scrutiny. The city engaged in outright intentional discrimination.
One Year After Heller
One year ago today, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in District of Columbia et al. v. Heller. The decision affirmed the Second Amendment as protecting an individual right to keep and bear arms and invalidated the District of Columbia’s draconian gun control regime.
The case generated a storm of media attention. The Cato Institute filed an amicus brief, one of nearly four dozen in the case.
The Cato Institute held a forum for Brian Doherty’s book chronicling this victory for liberty, Gun Control on Trial: Inside the Supreme Court Battle Over the Second Amendment. The Heller case also figured prominently in Cato multimedia from Robert A. Levy and Clark Neily.
Heller did not settle all of the questions related to the right to keep and bear arms. The incorporation of the Second Amendment against state bans and regulations is currently being litigated across the country. A three-judge panel in the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the Second Amendment is incorporated against the states. The Seventh Circuit and Second Circuit disagreed. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor was on the Second Circuit panel that declined to incorporate the Second Amendment, and Roger Pilon notes that this may play into her confirmation hearings. The circuit split on incorporation sets the stage for a further appeal to the Supreme Court, and Alan Gura and the National Rifle Association have both filed petitions for a writ of certiorari. Robert A. Levy discusses this in his recent Cato podcast.
It will be interesting to see what the next year brings for the Second Amendment.
Should Judges ‘Have the Back’ of Police Officers?
Vice-president Joe Biden says we should rally behind the Supreme Court nomination of Sotomayor because she will “have the back” of the police. Biden is a lawyer, a senator, and former chairman of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee, so he should know better than to pull a political stunt like that to curry favor with law enforcement groups. The Constitution places limits on the power of the police to search, detain, wiretap, imprison, and interrogate. The separation of powers principle means that judges must maintain their impartiality and “check” the police whenever they overstep their authority. To abdicate that responsibility and to “go along with the police” is to do away with our system of checks and balances.
As it happens, The New York Times has a story today about one Jeffrey Deskovic. He got caught up in a police investigation because he was “too distraught” over the rape and murder of his classmate. When there was no DNA match, prosecutors told the jury it didn’t really matter. Does Biden really want Supreme Court justices to come to the support of the state when habeas corpus petitions arrive on their desks and the police work is sloppy, weak, or worse?
On a related note, Cato adjunct scholar Harvey Silverglate fights another miscarriage of justice in Massachusetts.
More on Sotomayor
Cato adjunct scholars on Judge Sotomayor:
- Harvey Silverglate looks at the Supreme Court nominee’s free speech record.
- Richard Epstein compares the libertarian and conservative criteria for Supreme Court nominees.
Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that Sotomayor’s record on criminal justice issues put her to the right of David Souter. Good grief — that would mean that for Sotomayer just about all the barriers on state power come tumbling down: structural safeguards like enumerated powers, non-delegation, separation of powers and the limits pertaining to police and prosecutorial powers.
For more background, go here and here.
Who’s Blogging about Cato
Here’s your weekly roundup of bloggers who are writing about Cato research and commentary:
- Liberty Maven blogger Mike Miller cites Jim Harper in a post about the effort to impose a national ID card on American citizens.
- W.E. Messamore, AKA The Humble Libertarian, interviews Cato health analyst Michael D. Tanner about Obama’s plan to overhaul the health care system.
- Insider Online blogger Alex Adrianson covers Cato’s standoff with Hugo Chavez supporters and government agents during a pro-free market conference in Venezuela.
- Writing for Real Clear World’s Compass blog,
- At Red State, Ryan Ellis uses Michael Cannon’s research in a post about a market-based alternative to government-run health care.
- Blogging for Young Americans for Liberty, Jeff Hubbard and Elliot Engstrom write about Cato University and Ilya Shapiro’s CNN commentary on Sonia Sotomayor.
- Blogger David Kirkpatrick cites Daniel J. Ikenson’s analysis of the GM bankruptcy.
Let us know if you’re blogging about Cato via email or Twitter.
Responses to My Comments About Sotomayor
As might be expected, I have received much email responding to my CNN.com commentary about Obama’s Supreme Court pick. Some of it has been favorable, some less so (and some simply incoherent). One particular email covered most if not all concerns — and quite thoughtfully at that — so I thought I would share this exchange with a reader who emailed me his comments:
I read your piece “Sotomayor Pick Not Based on Merit”, where you write, “in over 10 years on the Second Circuit, she has not issued any important decisions”.
Granted that I’m a layman, not a legal scholar or anything – this list seems quite impressive, and, as a whole, pretty non-ideological.
In reviewing this list, I found myself disagreeing with her here and there, but I couldn’t find something that really irked me. Can you?
According to the authors, “Since joining the Second Circuit in 1998, Sotomayor has authored over 150 opinions, addressing a wide range of issues, in civil cases.” And that “To date, two of these decisions have been overturned by the Supreme Court; a third is under review and likely to be reversed.” 2 out of over 150, is not a bad record at all.
You also write that she’s “far less qualified for a seat on the Supreme Court than Judges Diane Wood and Merrick Garland or Solicitor General Elena Kagan.”
I did a bit of research on them, and I’m not sure why you reached that conclusion. They are all qualified, in some respects Wood and Kagan are a bit more impressive, but you give the impression that she’s not highly qualified, and I don’t see evidence for that. On the contrary, she seems highly qualified – she has a long judicial and academic record, she has dealt with a myriad of issues, and has authored a vast amount of rulings, which, as far as I’ve seen, don’t appear to be ideological or particularly “activist.” She strikes me as someone balanced and sensible, with a slight tilt to the left.
You also write, “this does not a mean that Sotomayor is unqualified to be a judge — or less qualified to be a Supreme Court justice than, say, Harriet Miers” – but, c’mon, how can you even compare her to Miers? Miers was truly unqualified. She’s hardly intellectually impressive in any way, to put it mildly, and nothing about her record was impressive or even remotely suggesting she’s qualified to serve as a Justice. She was basically a manager of a law firm, with zero qualifications to serve as a SC justice. By even mentioning her name while discussing Sotomayor, you’re giving the impression there’s an analogy there, where there’s really none. Sotomayor is light-years ahead of Miers. You can’t be serious.
You also make a big issue over Ricci v. DeStefano. Well, I personally would side with the firemen, and it’s unfortunate that Sotomayor hasn’t, but to be fair, she hasn’t even written a decision about that.
We don’t know what her reasoning was. She merely signed, along with the rest of the panel, to uphold the lower court’s decision. It’s hard to build an entire case against her based on something like that. She has written over 150 other decisions, why not focus on them? Why pick one, that doesn’t even have any arguments in it, and make it the central issue, when there are over 150 reasoned decisions to analyze?
Why not review them, and give the public a deeper assessment, rather than focusing on ONE, which doesn’t even have any arguments or reasoning in it?I’m generally a Cato fan, I get the mailings every day, I’m a moderate libertarian by philosophy, I’m just not sure why Cato is opposing her nomination. I like to think of Cato as non-partisan, just as I am, but on this issue your and Pilon’s opposition/criticism smacks from political partisanship and is not based on the evidence. So it seems to me.
Thanks for reading.
Here is my response:
Thanks for writing and for the thoughtful comments. A few points:
1. My argument is explicitly NOT that her opinions are disagreeable. I’ve waded through a fair number and read every public report on them produced thus far (including the very helpful SCOTUSblog summary you cite). Like you, some I agree with — most, actually, because most cases at this intermediate appellate level are not controversial (legally or politically), even if complex — some I don’t. But there’s just not much “there” there — intellectual depth, scholarly merit, etc. — at least by the elevated standards for elevation to the Supreme Court and in comparison to more accomplished jurists like Wood and Garland. She’s a competent judge, but we have 500 of those in the federal judiciary alone. (And none of this is to disparage her tremendous personal story; I write this from Princeton, where she had a truly impressive four years.)
2. Her reversal rate (I think there are six cases now) is a non-issue. The Supreme Court reverses over 60% of cases it hears and hears fewer than 2% of cases it is asked to review. So, statistically, we can say nothing about Sotomayor in that sense. A couple of her reversals are a bit strange, but on technical issues that, again, don’t lend much to the overall debate.
3. Yes, she’s much more qualified than Miers (though it’s a little unfair to say Miers was a mere “law firm manager” — she was White House counsel and apparently a decent lawyer in private practice). I threw that line in there to show I can pick on Republican nominees too.
4. While Roger, whom I copy here, has discussed suspicions of Sotomayor’s activism or radicalness — and I think it’s clear she has more of those tendencies than Wood or Kagan — this is not the thrust of the my CNN commentary. We just can’t tell from her opinions, which are all over the map — other than the speeches at Berkely and Duke and then the Ricci case.
5. Ricci is important for two reasons: a) on the merits, the decision is blatant racial discrimination — and the Supreme Court looks likely to overturn Sotomayor’s panel; b) perhaps more importantly, the failure to grapple with the complex constitutional and statutory issues is a serious dereliction of judicial duty — as pointed out by Jose Cabranes in his dissent from denial of en banc rehearing. Regardless of the merits of the case, the way it was handled — as a per curiam summary affirmance released late on a Friday, meant to sweep the case under the rug — is outrageous. Sotomayor was 100% complicit in that.
6. In no way are my (or Roger’s) comments partisan. Cato’s interest here isn’t in any particular personality but rather: 1) that official appointments be made irrespective of racial/ethnic/identity politics, and 2) even more importantly, that the Supreme Court interpret the Constitution in a way that treats the judicial enterprise not as one of enforcing social justice or otherwise rewriting the law it when a result is inconvenient. The talk of “empathy” is disturbing precisely because it is the antithesis of the rule of law. And this is why Republican Judiciary Committee members must generate a public debate on judicial philosophy and not merely attempt to tear down this nominee. If they don’t demand substantive answers on serious constitutional questions, they will be complicit in the deterioration of our confirmation processes.
All the best,
Ilya
I look forward to following and commenting further as the confirmation process plays itself out.
Week in Review: Sotomayor, North Korean Nukes and The Fairness Doctrine
Obama Picks Sotomayor for Supreme Court
President Obama chose federal Judge Sonia Sotomayor on Tuesday as his nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, the first Hispanic Latina to serve on the bench.
On Cato’s blog, constitutional law scholar Roger Pilon wrote, “President Obama chose the most radical of all the frequently mentioned candidates before him.”
Cato Supreme Court Review editor and senior fellow Ilya Shapiro weighed in, saying, “In picking Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama has confirmed that identity politics matter to him more than merit. While Judge Sotomayor exemplifies the American Dream, she would not have even been on the short list if she were not Hispanic.”
Shapiro expands his claim that Sotomayor was not chosen based on merit at CNN.com:
In over 10 years on the Second Circuit, she has not issued any important decisions or made a name for herself as a legal scholar or particularly respected jurist. In picking a case to highlight during his introduction of the nominee, President Obama had to go back to her days as a trial judge and a technical ruling that ended the 1994-95 baseball strike.
Pilon led a live-chat on The Politico’s Web site, answering questions from readers about Sotomayor’s record and history.
And at The Wall Street Journal, Cato senior fellow John Hasnas asks whether “compassion and empathy” are really characteristics we want in a judge:
Paraphrasing Bastiat, if the difference between the bad judge and the good judge is that the bad judge focuses on the visible effects of his or her decisions while the good judge takes into account both the effects that can be seen and those that are unseen, then the compassionate, empathetic judge is very likely to be a bad judge. For this reason, let us hope that Judge Sotomayor proves to be a disappointment to her sponsor.
North Korea Tests Nukes
The Washington Post reports, “North Korea reportedly fired two more short-range missiles into waters off its east coast Tuesday, undeterred by the strong international condemnation that followed its detonation of a nuclear device and test-firing of three missiles a day earlier.”
Writing in the National Interest online, Cato scholar Doug Bandow discusses how the United States should react:
Washington has few options. The U.S. military could flatten every building in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), but even a short war would be a humanitarian catastrophe and likely would wreck Seoul, South Korea’s industrial and political heart. America’s top objective should be to avoid, not trigger, a conflict. Today’s North Korean regime seems bound to disappear eventually. Better to wait it out, if possible.
On Cato’s blog, Bandow expands on his analysis on the best way to handle North Korea:
The U.S. should not reward “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-Il with a plethora of statements beseeching the regime to cooperate and threatening dire consequences for its bad behavior. Rather, the Obama administration should explain, perhaps through China, that the U.S. is interested in forging a more positive relationship with [the] North, but that no improvement will be possible so long as North Korea acts provocatively. Washington should encourage South Korea and Japan to take a similar stance.
Moreover, the U.S. should step back and suggest that China, Seoul, and Tokyo take the lead in dealing with Pyongyang. North Korea’s activities more threaten its neighbors than America. Even Beijing, the North’s long-time ally, long ago lost patience with Kim’s belligerent behavior and might be willing to support tougher sanctions.
Cato Media Quick Hits
Here are a few highlights of Cato media appearances now up on Cato’s YouTube channel:
- Ted Galen Carpenter discuss the North Korean missile tests on WOR radio.
- On Fox News, Chris Edwards disputes the idea of a federal sales tax.
- Gene Healy comments on the future of Guantanamo detainees on BBC.
- On CNBC, Dan Mitchell explains why California is like the “France of America.”
- In Friday’s Cato Daily Podcast, John Samples discusses how at least three presidents used the Fairness Doctrine to squelch dissenting speech.
Filed under: Cato Publications; Foreign Policy and National Security; Government and Politics; Law and Civil Liberties
Richard Epstein on Sotomayor
Cato adjunct scholar Richard Epstein of the University of Chicago and New York University, finds much to worry about in Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court:
The treatment of the compensation packages of key AIG executives (which eventually led to the indecorous resignation of Edward Liddy), and the massive insinuation of the executive branch into the (current) Chrysler and (looming) General Motors bankruptcies are sure to generate many a spirited struggle over two issues that are likely to define our future Supreme Court’s jurisprudence. The level of property rights protection against government intervention on the one hand, and the permissible scope of unilateral action by the president in a system that is (or at least should be) characterized by a system of separation of powers and checks and balances on the other.
Here is one straw in the wind that does not bode well for a Sotomayor appointment. Justice Stevens of the current court came in for a fair share of criticism (all justified in my view) for his expansive reading in Kelo v. City of New London (2005) of the “public use language.” Of course, the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment is as complex as it is short: “Nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” But he was surely done one better in the Summary Order in Didden v. Village of Port Chester issued by the Second Circuit in 2006. Judge Sotomayor was on the panel that issued the unsigned opinion–one that makes Justice Stevens look like a paradigmatic defender of strong property rights.
I have written about Didden in Forbes. The case involved about as naked an abuse of government power as could be imagined. Bart Didden came up with an idea to build a pharmacy on land he owned in a redevelopment district in Port Chester over which the town of Port Chester had given Greg Wasser control. Wasser told Didden that he would approve the project only if Didden paid him $800,000 or gave him a partnership interest. The “or else” was that the land would be promptly condemned by the village, and Wasser would put up a pharmacy himself. Just that came to pass. But the Second Circuit panel on which Sotomayor sat did not raise an eyebrow. Its entire analysis reads as follows: “We agree with the district court that [Wasser's] voluntary attempt to resolve appellants’ demands was neither an unconstitutional exaction in the form of extortion nor an equal protection violation.”
Maybe I am missing something, but American business should shudder in its boots if Judge Sotomayor takes this attitude to the Supreme Court.
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