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That is good that she at least apologized. However, if some election-based suit is appealed to the Supreme Court regarding Trump's election (as per Bush v. Gore) she would still, in my mind, need to recuse herself.
One good thing: it served as a reminder to people that President Obama months ago nominated a person for the vacant seat on the Court, with the Senate refusing to perform their constitutional duty to advise and consent. As I have said, at the least they should hold a hearing and then reject the nomination.
I wouldn't call it an apology so much as an acknowledgement that she shouldn't have made the comments.
I would have had a little respect for her if she just said "Sorry, that was my dementia speaking".
At 83, this old battleaxe needs to be shown to the sidelines. As taxpayers, we shouldn't have to tolerate such a poor employee, and in the end, that's all she is -- an employee of the taxpayers. She has basically poisoned her own waters of impartiality.
I think Ginsberg is entitled to her opinion, and entitled to express it, BUT I also think that as someone with a lifetime appointment to a seat on the Supreme Court, she has to be mindful of how such expression reflects on the court as a whole. I do think she should have been more discreet.
That said, I have felt similarly when it comes to Justice Thomas, who has not just been outspoken about his opinions on various political issues, but has attended and spoken at various events where his political stances have been made very clear.
Since it is up to the justices to recuse themselves when they feel that they cannot be impartial, I think it's important for the public to know the political leanings of the justices. The justices are just human beings, with all the foibles of human beings, and while they should strive to put aside their personal feelings when weighing the law, that's not always possible.
When the justices go public with their political stances, it is to be hoped that it is because of their great passion for these issues, and that they would be able to acknowledge that their passions and impartiality are at odds. So they should consider recusing themselves from cases where their passions are engaged.
No, I don't think Supremes should express political opinions in the press. But, to deny these justices harbor biases is absurd. After all SCJ Sonia Sotomayor said:
I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.
No, I don't think Supremes should express political opinions in the press. But, to deny these justices harbor biases is absurd. After all SCJ Sonia Sotomayor said:
I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.
I think this remark is often taken out of context.
Really? What do you think she meant by it? To me, her comment was racist and sexist. If you swap the words Latina and white and woman and male, it is unequivocal.
I would hope that a wise white male with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latina woman who hasn't lived that life.
rac·ist
ˈrāsəst/
noun
1.
a person who believes that a particular race is superior to another.
synonyms: racial bigot, racialist, xenophobe, chauvinist, supremacist More
adjective
Last edited by texan2yankee; 07-14-2016 at 11:51 AM..
Really? What do you think she meant by it? To me, her comment was racist and sexist. If you swap the words Latina and white and woman and male, it is unequivocal.
It's neither racist or sexist to me.
She was speaking about empathy and how it relates to the law.
Oliver Wendell Holmes remarked that, "The life of the law has not been logic, it has been experience." What he was talking about is that the laws of a nation are actually a narrative. It tells a story about what the nation values, and how a nation has arrived at its values. When Henry II began establishing the legal system in England, a system that didn't depend on privilege and social status, his goal was to solidify the power of the king and to undermine the power of the nobles. He was largely an absentee king, so he had to have a system where the people he vested his power in could operate independently of the nobility of the nation.
But in undermining the authority of the nobles he empowered the people who were not of the nobility, he gave them a voice, he gave them a chance for justice. And it was that ideal, the chance for justice, that is the fundamental principle of modern jurisprudence. How it works, though, is that the judges must be able to empathize with the parties involved. The idea that justice is blind is not that justice is cold and unsympathetic, but that justice is blind to privilege and entitlement.
Judges bring to the court their knowledge, their education and experience. With those things come empathy, the ability to see the case and its legal questions from the viewpoints of everyone involved. That's necessary for a judge to have a complete understanding of a legal case.
And that's something we innately understand, which is why we have judges sit on panels when considering appeals and Constitutional issues, rather than having a single judge weigh in. We recognize that judges are limited by the limitations of their experiences and education, and when we have multiple judges, we expand those limits, we push the boundaries, so that the final decision is a better decision, based on broader knowledge and experience.
Women have very different life experiences than men, and people of various ethnicities have different life experiences. Their inclusion in the judiciary system has changed the narrative of the law in the United States. And that's a good thing, because the United States has ever been a nation of immigrants and of diversity, and we are a nation governed by our laws. The law must reflect the greater body of our country, not just the White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant and Male part of our heritage.
When cases are brought up involving women, or involving Latinos, Sotomayor can share her unique insights in those cases with the other justices, and those insights will lead to better legal rulings.
My biggest issue with the Supreme Court today is that as diverse as the court is in some ways, the educational backgrounds of the justices are all very similar. I would like to see justices whose entire foundation in their educations regarding the Constitution and the law is not confined to the Ivy League, to the same professors over and over again, repeating their interpretations. I would like to see justices who attended schools in the midwest and in the west, who have different perspectives, represented on the Court.
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