This week you'll hear plenty of pols, mostly Democrats, proclaiming that it's a good thing that Elena Kagan has never been a judge. We will be told that having a wealth of outside experience will bring a better dynamic to the court. All of this will be nonsense.
The Supreme Court has the most myopic job description in our government. Yet, the basic and limited sets job duties are required to be mastered better than anyone in the world. All the Supreme Court ever does is hear cases and rule on constitutionality. That means that Supreme Court justices need to know the constitution and case law better than anyone on the planet.
There's only one way for someone to achieve this. That is to be a judge for a long time, to hear cases, and to rule on these cases in as large a number as possible. That can only come from being a judge for as long as possible.
It's silly to believe that being a little coach or a volunteer will somehow bring the kind of experience that will help to maximize the skills necessary to be a superior Supreme Court justice. Neither will help a justice to know the constitution and case law so that they can more fully and effectively think through a case and come to the proper conclusion, CONSTITUTIONALLY.
Yet, Senators we've voted to do this job will have us believe that far from actually being on a bench and making the very decisions a Supreme Court justice will make, some sort of nebulous real world experience is necessary. In fact, the only real world of the Supreme Court is the real world of the bench.
Well if you want to get really technical about it, the people who spend most of their time talking about Constitutional Law aren't Judges, they're Law Professors.
ReplyDeleteFirst, only constitutional law professors. Within your duties, you need to write decisions which professors don't do that often.
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