There have certainly been some… interesting… nominations for the soon-to-be-empty Supreme Court seat. And why not? It’s like a FRP (fantasy role playing; think Dungeons & Dragons) game for political wonks! After all, neither woman needs the aggravation, but wouldn’t it be fun to watch the Republicans go (even more) crazy if either Hillary Clinton or Anita Hill was nominated?
Some of the names floated by serious mainstream media outlets have already come as a surprise to me. I wasn’t surprised when the local Boston media immediately cornered Deval Patrick and demanded to know whether he’d abandon his campaign for re-election if he was nominated, because here in “The Hub of the Universe” we have a good opinion of our political prowess out of all proportion to our actual importance. But even inside Route 128, most people think of Governor Patrick as ‘Barack Obama Lite’, which would only make him valuable if the president had the megalomaniacal self-regard of a Glenn Beck or a John Boehner. Gov. Jennifer Granholm? Russ Feingold? Sen. Amy Klobuchar? Elliot Spitzer? Heck, why not Martha Coakley? She’s been “tough on crime” in the Rethuglican tradition (advocating fierce crackdowns on disturbances to the public order such as the Aqua Teen Hunger Force LED Graffiti-Terrorists, and punitive sentences for accused sexual predators except possibly those employed by the keepers of such order). And it would infuriate the “Independent (TP)” Scott Brown voters, even (especially) those who’ve already fallen out of love with He-Who-Drives-A-Truck.
As long as President Obama doesn’t nominate Mitt Romney… and I’m sure there are Sensible Centrists already promoting that travesty; the only question is whether Richard Cohen or Thomas Friedman will get the first thumbsucker into print… I’m prepared to find something positive. But if we’re going to play “In A Perfect World… “, my nomination would be Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Margaret H. Marshall:
Marshall was born in Newcastle, South Africa, the daughter of a steel executive. She attended University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and was a leader of students who opposed the racist apartheid system. Marshall led a student organization for three years called the National Union of South African Students, which was dedicated to ending oppressive minority rule and achieving equality for all South Africans…
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She moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1964 and attended Harvard University (earning a master’s degree in education in 1969) and Yale Law School. In 1984, she married then-New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis…
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From 1976 to 1989, she was an associate and a partner in private practice at the Boston law firm of Csaplar & Bok. From 1989 to 1992, she was a partner in the Boston law firm of Choate, Hall & Stewart. Also from 1991 to 1992, she was President of the Boston Bar Association, the oldest bar association in the United States. From 1992-1996, she was General Counsel to Harvard University.
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Marshall was appointed to be an Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 1996 by Republican Governor William F. Weld. She was named as Chief Justice in September 1999 by Republican Governor Paul Cellucci, to begin her term on October 14, 1999. She is the second woman to serve on the Supreme Judicial Court, the oldest appellate court in the Western Hemisphere, and the first to serve as Chief Justice in its more than 300 year history.
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In the course of her term, she has written over 200 opinions. Marshall wrote the decision in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health that declared that the Massachusetts Constitution does not permit the state to deny citizens the right to same-sex marriage.
Xenocrates
She would get my vote; sadly, the people of the State of New York have failed to elect me to the Senate of the United States, therefore I have no real choice. I fully expect as much “bipartisan cooperation” on this nominee as we have seen from the GOP since Obama’s election. That is to say, none. Fuck the GOP, fuck their obstructionism, just fuck ’em. They have proven what they stand for; absolutely nothing, or more properly, whoever is giving them the most money. While the Democrats are far from ideal, just look at what 8 years of Republican rule did to this country. Want another 9/11 or Katrina? Vote GOP…
tesslibrarian
Marshall sounds fantastic, but I’m prone to think that of anyone even loosely associated with Anthony Lewis.
Mike Kay
Ben Roethlisberger. He’s young and knows the legal system back and forth.
wrb
I like Sheldon Whitehouse
Liz
I love Margaret.
j.e.b.
Nothing wrong with Marshall in a subsantive sense, but…umm…she’ll be 66 this year! Somebody noted the other day that Democrats already nominate people who are 7 years older than Republicans do (57 to 50).
These days, 55 should be about the limit, age-wise.
Da Bomb
I am for former Georgia Supreme Court Justice Leah Ward Sears. She will be 55 this year. So she won’t be as old.
Rick Massimo
Someday I will grow out of the desire to see Anita Hill nominated.
But not today. Today I am in “what will piss off the conservatives most?” mode. I really think we need a good six months or so where that is the prime consideration in every policy decision.
Just six months – not eight years like BushCo did. But six months would really have a beneficial effect.
Litlebritdifrnt
As many people have been saying, the repubs are gonna object no matter who it is so POTUS might as well go all out and nominate a complete and utter left wing radical, cause he could nominate the re-animated corpse of Ronald Regan and the repubs would still fillibuster.
Fuck em. They had a chance to play nice and took their ball and went home. I say lets not even pick them for the team this time.
Allan
Anita Hill.
Lawnguylander
Yes, while she sounds pretty awesome the nominee should be younger and her family’s medical history should contain less bad shit than Alito’s or Roberts’s.
Allan
@Rick Massimo: Jinx!
ETA: Oh, and she’s 53.
MikeJ
@j.e.b.:
I’d nominate Sasha Obama if I wasn’t afraid that when she hits 17 somebody might slip her a copy of Telemachus Sneezed.
BDeevDad
Waiting for the jokes that she would be the first African American woman on the Supreme Court.
Punchy
Tickle Me Elmo. Who else is more pro-children, pro-public airwaves, and least likely to have put his non-existent pubes in someone’s Coke?
Mike Kay
Horace Rumpole
cleek
Matlock
no Republican could vote against Matlock
wrb
@Mike Kay:
Rumpole doesn’t stand a chance. Someone would grass him out for some of the stuff he’s pulled.
And Hilda would be insufferable
dr. bloor
Too old. Does she have a granddaughter?
mr. whipple
She’s just leave for the Caribbean during her confirmation hearing.
Mike Kay
What’s Long Dong Silver doing these days?
NobodySpecial
Lisa Madigan.
Linda Featheringill
Lots of good choices, everyone. [Rumpole. Heh. Indeed.]
Emotionally, I agree with Rick Massimo and Litlebritdifrnt – The Republicans are not going to be cooperative anyway, so we might as well name anyone we like. And hope that we make the Right Wing really, really angry. I would like to see that.
Intellectually, I am [a little] more mature. I think we should nominate someone who is really competent, who has compassion, and who has the courage of his/her convictions. But again, the Republicans are not going to be cooperative anyway, so we might as well name anyone we like.
Margaret Marshall sounds good. Leah Ward Sears also sounds good. I am sure there are others.
Maybe the White House will publish a short list so we could look into the folks and find out something about them.
This could get interesting.
jon
@Punchy: Elmo happens to be entirely made out of pubes, probably culled from Indian women in some idolatrous ritual.
I’d like Obama to nominate himself. As someone who enjoys politics, it would be like having a Super Large Hadron Collider doing its thing to see if there’s a Moore’s Law correlation to Peak Wingnut. All those pundit heads exploding in all those long corridors would be fun to watch.
Popcorn time.
Warren Terra
She sounds like a fantastic human being and jurist – but like the other cynics I’m stressing predicted longevity.
The pathologically bitter antediluvian conservative Clarence Thomas was a bit over 40.
El Cid
Just don’t put Dick Cheney on the search committee unless you want to end up with Justice Dick Cheney.
Xantar
Oh the teabaggers are not going to like that. Yes, I know there’s no constitutional requirement that SCOTUS Justices must be born in the US, but try telling that to them.
moe99
Frankly, with all that’s out there in terms of huge looming issues that still need to be dealt with, my first take is that it would behoove us to have a nominee who will be the least controversial choice. We also have the midterm elections coming up and while a long drawn out battle might be utterly satisfying to those of us who follow it daily, I think the majority of Americans would not look upon it so kindly. They, instead, would be impressed if the nominee could get confirmed readily without a minimum of fuss And the Dems would save the capital to be used on other issues.
Which is why I don’t think that Hillary Clinton is a bad choice. Senators are historically deferential to one of their own and for McConnell and company to trample on that, well, it would be a huge breaking up of Senate etiquette, that of course could be used later by the Dems when working at getting rid of the filibuster.
So, any way, on to the races. That’s my 2 cents worth. Nor enough for a trifecta.
Ed Drone
@Mike Kay:
Don’t you mean “in-and-out?”
Ed
Xenos
Erwin Chemerinsky. So much of the court’s role is to educate the public about the law, and why it means what it means, that we really need a top-notch legal educator on the court.
He also testified in Congress that Sam Alito would be unfit as a justice, and I like that an awful lot.
SadOldVet
In deference to David Broeder and bipartisanship, Obama should let The Federalist Society select the nominee, with Pat Robertson, Grover Norquist, and President McCain being given veto powers.
If Obama would do this, it would increase the likelihood (not guaranteed) that he could find 2 or 3 republican senators to vote to stop their filibuster.
ChrisB
@Punchy: Tickle me Elmo? How about Tinky Winky for a sublime Republican reaction.
Like others have said, the Republicans will scream no matter who is nominated, the nominee will still be confirmed despite the screaming, and the Republicans are making all this noise now to try to get Obama to nominate someone as centrist as possible. I say go for the gusto.
Having said that, I think it’s going to be Kagan.
For me it’s between her and Wood, who I understand is more liberal but she’s 10 years older and I want someone on the Court for 30 years, not 20, that’s a 50% difference.
El Cid
@Xantar: Nominating an anti-apartheid South African would, for righties, represent another opportunity to start screaming that libruls really love Robert Mugabe. Why? Because just like Reagan and Cheney, they actually liked the South African apartheid fascist regime, not least because of the millions of neighboring country Africans they helped slaughter with Reagan’s assistance, and also, just because.
PaulW
I think Obama’s best route is appellate judge Diane Wood.
Jennifer
I think Patrick Fitzgerald would be a great choice.
Plus, he’s still really young; he’d be on the court for 3 decades at least.
I don’t know that he’s a “liberal” or “conservative” but I think he’s demonstrated that he’s smart, fair minded and objective in applying the law. Absolutely not a tool of either side.
I doubt we could do much better than someone like him; unfortunately, there’s plenty of opportunity to do much, much worse.
Brachiator
We need brackets, like the college championships. You would have potential nominees and opponents such as GOP boneheads, liberal purists, etc.
Marshall’s age might count against her. Worse, she is married to a New York Times columnist, which negates her having been appointed by a Republican governor to the state court.
Zifnab
@Linda Featheringill: Someone that hits on an emotional touch stone is fun. Sotomayor was a great pick because she threw the anti-hispanic wingers into absolute fits and really dragged out the racist crazies. I’d love to see Obama put Marshall up and send the Kenyan conspiracy theorists and Mass.-bashers into fits again.
Anyone female or ethnic, and highly successful will do, though. Honestly, I’d just like to see a black SCOTUS judge that isn’t Clarance Thomas.
MikeJ
I like CKK, but she’s 67.
tc125231
@Jennifer:
Llelldorin
@Mike Kay:
Too old. Elizabeth Probert.
SadOldVet
I nominate myself and I lay out the following strategy for getting republican senators to endorse my nomination.
I am an old white male, so I can get the rethug senators to agree to my appointment. Especially important in getting southern senators to agree and Obama can say he will nominate a gay black woman if my nomination fails.
I can lie to the senators (like Roberts) about what I believe so that they will not know that I am extremely progressive. I will tell them that Citizens United Not Timid is the future that we need and that any federal regulation is undesireable.
I will promise (another lie) that I support the overturn of both Roe v Wade and Griswold v Connecticut. This will assure the support of the Right-to-Lifers and short circuit any possible rethug senatorial objections.
I will promise (another lie) to never rule in favor of any climate change legislation as being too onerous for business. At least not until Exxon-Mobile’s gulf coast refinaries are under four feet of water and they change their mind.
Llelldorin
Using non-literary characters:
To piss off the Republicans: Al Franken. (It’d be hilarious, if indefensible)
To piss off the Republicans with plausible deniability: Pamela Karlan (she’s obviously qualified, unlike Franken)
Of the supposed short list: Diane Wood. (The most liberal of the short list. We need a few strident liberal voices on the court.)
john@MM
What about Bill Ayers? Of course, Bertha Lewis is also looking for a new gig now that ACORN is no more. Either one should sail right through confirmation hearings. I can’t imagine why anyone would object to either one.
neil
Margaret Marshall would be terrific, therefore she won’t come close to being nominated. Though, it would be great fun watching the Republicans on the committee go apoplectic with outrage. Can you imagine? The sad part is, they would successfully demagogue the issue to the point where she’d receive death threats – just like she did when she wrote the majority opinion in Goodridge.
Hob
Please stop saying Anita Hill. I know y’all mean well, but it would be inhumane to require her to sit near Clarence Thomas every day for as long as they both shall live.
SadOldVet
I could support a strong, progressive black woman as the next Justice of the Supreme Court, but I fear that it would lead to a lack of decorum on the court.
Any strong, progressive black woman would undoubtably be compelled to bitch slap Clarence Thomas at least once every couple of weeks.
Geeno
I liked the suggestion of Pamela Karlan at LG&M.
JD Rhoades
Nominate her and I guarantee someone will conflate this with the ANC and accuse her of supporting necklacing.
Next thing you know it’s “terrorist nominee Margaret Marshall”
Mark my words.
SGEW
Since we’re playing a total fantasy game, how about Michelle Obama? She has a JD from Harvard, no appellate level paper trail, and she’s only 46.
Yes, it would be wildly inappropriate for the President to nominate his relatively unqualified spouse, but it would be kind of awesome.
Snarki, child of Loki
Hey, if fantasy is the game, what about Bill Clinton?
Yeah, gave up license to practice law, but last I check the Constitution, that wasn’t a requirement.
And giving Scalia a massive coronary? Sweet!
Malaclypse
Is there anybody that would piss off the right-wing blogosphere as much as Amanda Marcotte?
kvenlander
@Snarki, child of Loki:
No, no, not Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton. Epic headsplosions.
Xenos
@kvenlander: True, and they would find it hard to pull off a filibuster on a former Senator. But clinton is a moderate, not a true liberal, so I would want to do a bit better than HRC. The silence of the PUMAs would be a bonus.
Warren Terra
@Snarki, child of Loki:
Speaking of massive coronaries, given his medical history, how long do you think Bill Clinton would last on the court?
Hillary Clinton doesn’t have his medical history, but she’s 62, and she gets all the downsides of appointing a genuine liberal (in terms of manufactured controversy – sure , it’d be entertaining, but probably not productive) without actually being particularly liberal, especially in the areas of executive power and civil liberties.
Unfortunately, and predictably, in office Obama has been all too fond of executive power, so I have no confidence he’d appoint someone with genuinely liberal ideas about that issue. But neither Clinton would qualify as an exception to my prediction.
Someone who would be good on executive power, of course, is Dawn Johnsen, whose abandonment of her long-filibustered nomination to OLC was reported in a tiny newswire piece late on Friday night on the NYTimes.com front page (in small print and not naming her in the headline, you had to click the link). Sadly, her decision to give up has gotten little noise in the blogosphere, perhaps because people had long since given up both on the Senate moving her forward and on Obama fighting to have his executive powers constrained by her.
Adrienne
@SadOldVet:
As a strong, progressive black woman I’d have to agree. Oh, by the way: You TOTALLY owe me a computer screen!
Fred Fnord
She’s what, 70? I don’t think that’s such a good idea.
-fred
JMC in the ATL
I’m all for him nominating his wife. Talk about wingnut outrage.
El Cid
Supreme Court Justice Sean Penn.
Cacti
Leah Ward Sears
b. June 13, 1955 (young enough)
-First African American Superior Court Judge in Georgia history (1988)
-First woman and youngest person ever appointed to Georgia Supreme Court (1992)
-First African American female Chief Justice in the United States (2005)
There you go, 55 years old, 22 years judicial experience, 17 years as a State Supreme Court Justice, 4 years as a Chief Justice.
And the added bonus of making the Repukes look sexist and racist for opposing her.
Warren Terra
@Cacti:
Sounds interesting – but how is she on civil liberties? On executive power (not much to rule on at the state level, I guess)? On corporate power?
The identity stuff is interesting, but it’s not everything: Clarence Thomas is African-American, after all. And until I’m told something good about them, I’m nervous about a judge elected statewide, especially in the South. She’s been there for a long time, perhaps since before the corporate meddling in state Supreme Court elections got completely out of hand (read up about the Texas Supreme Court sometime, if you haven’t; I recommend doing so only on an empty stomach) – but as I said, my prejudice is to be nervous.
Cacti
@Warren Terra:
My apologies for “Life News” as a source.
But apparently, she’s on Obama’s short list and
“Sears is a member of the left-leaning American Constitution Society and a worry for pro-life advocates.”
Cacti
Oops, here’s the link
Tax Analyst
There was some trick to fixing this “strikethrough” thingee, but I can’t remember if this was it(?)
Tax Analyst
nope.
asiangrrlMN
Me. I nominate me. Maximum head explosion would occur. Barring that, I am behind Harold Koh strictly for racial reasons. Other than that, my only requirement is that the person not be Catholic.
Third Eye Open
Hurry, Obi Wan Feingold, you’re our only hope!
He isn’t Liberal, per se. But, I agree with much of his reading of the Constitution…
gwangung
@asiangrrlMN:
Can’t be just for racial reasons; Koh’s competent….
PhoenixRising
I’m behind you behind Kenji Yoshino, for strictly racial reasons.
Also, demographic two-fer.
Also, a Hahvahd man like our only President ought to appoint a(nother) Yale man.
Also, immigrant as a child. Plus Oxbridge intellectual.
DPirate
Steven Dunham would be a super choice, but he would likely turn it down. He’s a public defender in St Albans, VT.
Triassic Sands
Age matters.
Pam Karlan. She’s qualified. She’s not another mushy centrist. And she’s 14 or 15 years younger than Marshall.
She’s also much, much too liberal for Obama.
I would certainly prefer Marshall to anyone Obama is likely to choose.
Brian J
@Triassic Sands:
Both Karlan and Johnsen are good ages to camp out for a couple of decades, and Kathleen Sullivan is right behind then. Elena Kagan is around that age, too, but it’s not at all clear she’s nearly as liberal as any of those three.
Diane Wood is older, and while she’s on the left, she’s probably not as liberal as Karlan (because, as one person said, she’s an anti-trust lawyer, and they don’t tend to be firebrands), but she does have the advantage of probably knowing Obama better than the others, based on teaching at Chicago while Obama was there. But if she’s the most liberal we can get, I’d be happy, because she’s supposed to be incredibly smart.