Tag: justices

The Shape of the Supreme Court

UPDATED 08/09/10

With the replacement of Justice John Paul Stevens by Elena Kagan, the Court’s presidential provenance looks like this*:

Reagan — Antonin Scalia (1986), Anthony Kennedy (1988)

Bush I — Clarence Thomas (1991)

Clinton — Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1993), Stephen Breyer (1994)

Bush II — John Roberts (2005), Samuel Alito (2006)

Obama — Sonia Sotomayor (2009), Elena Kagan (2010)

In terms of age, the Court looks like this:

Ginsburg, 77

Scalia, 74

Kennedy, 73

Breyer, 71

Thomas, 61

Alito, 60

Sotomayor, 55

Roberts, 55

Kagan, 50

Barring an unexpected death or retirement, Ginsburg will be the next to go. Like Souter and Stevens, she is likely to retire on Obama’s watch, in an effort to maintan the Court’s present ideological balance. Obama’s picks have not, and likely will not, alter the Court’s ideological balance, but they will create a core of youngish “liberal” justices, who will serve for decades.

The best that we devoted adherents of the Constitution can hope for is a one-term Obama-cy and a Republican successor who will do a better job of selecting justices than Ford (Stevens), Reagan (O’Connor and Kennedy), and G.H.W. Bush (Souter). In fact, the election of a Republican is critical because the person who sits in the White House from 2013 to 2017 or 2021 may well have to replace three justices — most likely Scalia, Kennedy, and Breyer.

Imagine the future of the Court if those three justices — an eccentric originalist, a wavering centrist, and a semi-hard leftist — could be replaced with sober, collegial originalists. They would outnumber Kagan, Sotomayor, and the next Ginsburg by 6-3, setting the stage for an era of constitutional resurgence.

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* For those of you who are interested in the Court’s genealogy, the following lines of succession have led to the present Court (* = elevated from associate justice to chief justice):

Chief Justice
John Jay (1789-1795)
John Rutledge* (1795-1795)
Oliver Ellsworth (1796-1800)
John Marshall (1801-1835)
Roger Brooke Taney (1836-1864)
Salmon Portland Chase (1864-1873)
Morrison Remick Waite (1874-1888)
Melville Weston Fuller (1888-1910)
Edward Douglass White* (1910-1921)
William Howard Taft (1921-1930)
Charles Evans Hughes* (1930-1941)
Harlan Fiske Stone* (1941-1946)
Fred Moore Vinson (1946-1953)
Earl Warren (1954-1969)
Warren Earl Burger (1969-1986)
William Hubbs Rehnquist* (1986-2005)
John Glover Roberts Jr. (2005-)

Associate-1
James Wilson (1789-1798)
Bushrod Washington (1799-1829)
Henry Baldwin (1830-1844)
Robert Cooper Grier (1846-1870)
William Strong (1870-1880)
William Burnham Woods (1881-1887)
Lucius Quintus C. Lamar (1888-1893)
Howell Edmunds Jackson (1893-1895)
Rufus Wheeler Peckham (1895-1899)
Horace Harmon Lurton (1910-1914)
James Clark McReynolds (1914-1941)
James Francis Byrnes (1941-1942)
Wiley Blount Rutledge (1943-1949)
Sherman Minton (1949-1956)
William Joseph Brennan Jr. (1957-1990)
David Hackett Souter (1990-2009)
Sonia Maria Sotomayor (2009-)

Associate-2
William Cushing (1790-1810)
Joseph Story (1812-1845)
Levi Woodbury (1846-1851)
Benjamin Robbins Curtis (1851-1857)
Nathan Clifford (1858-1881)
Horace Gray (1882-1902)
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1902-1932)
Benjamin Nathan Cardozo (1932-1938)
Felix Frankfurter (1939-1962)
Arthur Joseph Goldberg (1962-1965)
Abraham Fortas (1965-1969)
Harry Andrew Blackmun (1970-1994)
Stephen Gerald Breyer (1994-)

Associate-3
John Blair (1790-1795)
Samuel Chase (1796-1811)
Gabriel Duvall (1811-1835)
Philip Pendleton Barbour (1836-1841)
Peter Vivian Daniel (1842-1860)
Samuel Freeman Miller (1862-1890)
Henry Billings Brown (1891-1906)
William Henry Moody (1906-1910)
Willis Van Devanter (1911-1937)
Hugo Lafayette Black (1937-1971)
Lewis Franklin Powell Jr. (1972-1987)
Anthony McLeod Kennedy (1988-)

Associate-4
John Rutledge* (1790-1791)
Thomas Johnson (1792-1793)
William Patterson (1793-1806)
Brockholst Livingston (1807-1823)
Smith Thompson (1824-1843)
Samuel Nelson (1845-1872)
Ward Hunt (1873-1882)
Samuel Blatchford (1882-1893)
Edward Douglass White* (1894-1910)
Joseph Rucker Lamar (1911-1916)
Louis Dembitz Brandeis (1916-1939)
William Orville Douglas (1939-1975)
John Paul Stevens (1975-2010)
Elena Kagan (2010-)

Associate-5
James Iredell (1790-1799)
Alfred Moore (1800-1804)
William Johnson (1804-1834
James Moore Wayne (1835-1867)

Associate-6
Thomas Todd (1807-1826)
Robert Trimble (1826-1828)
John McLane (1830-1861)
Noah Hayes Swayne (1862-1881)
Stanely Matthews (1881-1889)
David Josiah Brewer (1890-1910)
Charles Evans Hughes* (1910-1916)
John Hessin Clarke (1916-1922)
George Sutherland (1922-1938)
Stanley Forman Reed (1938-1957)
Charles Evans Whitaker (1952-1962)
Byron Raymond White (1962-1993)
Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1993-)

Associate-7
John Carlton (1837-1865)

Associate-8
John McKinley (1838-1852)
John Archibald Campbell (1853-1861)
David Davis (1862-1877)
John Marshall Harlan (1877-1911)
Mahlon Pitney (1912-1922)
Edward Terry Sanford (1923-1930)
Owen Josephus Robert (1930-1945)
Harold Hitz Burton (1945-1958)
Potter Stewart (1959-1981)
Sandra Day O’Connor (1981-2006)
Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. (2006-)

Associate-9
Stephen Johnson Field (1863-1897)
Joseph McKenna (1898-1925)
Harlan Fiske Stone* (1925-1941)
Robert Houghwout Jackson (1941-1954)
John Marshall Harlan II (1955-1971)
William Hubbs Rehnquist* (1972-1986)
Antonin Gregory Scalia (1986-)

Associate-10
Joseph P. Bradley (1870-1892)
George Shiras Jr. (1892-1903)
William Rufus Day (1903-1922)
Pierce Butler (1923-1939)
William Francis Murphy (1940-1949)
Thomas Campbell Clark (1949-1967)
Thurgood Marshall (1967-1991)
Clarence Thomas (1991-)

Sources: Appendix Two, “Nominations and Successions of the Justices,” The Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions, edited by Kermit L. Hall, Oxford University Press, 1999; “Members of the Supreme Court of the United States,” from the website of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Whither the Supreme Court?

It seems that Justice Souter has yet to hire any clerks for the October 2009 term of the U.S. Supreme Court. Given that and Justice Ginsburg’s recent hint about an impending vacancy on the Court, it may not be premature to speculate on the Court’s direction should Souter resign.

It would be premature to guess about Obama’s replacement for Souter, except to venture that the person he picks will be of the Left. But, thanks to SCOTUSblog‘s analysis of Court rulings for the October 2008 term to date (updated through 04/30/09), it is possible to gauge the effect of Souter’s departure on the Court’s ideological balance. Compare Souter’s record with that of his “liberal” peers in disagreements with the Court’s more conservative members*:

In disagreement, non-unanimous cases
Souter Stevens Ginsburg Breyer Average
Roberts 72% 76% 72% 52% 68%
Scalia 69% 79% 69% 62% 70%
Kennedy 55% 66% 48% 41% 53%
Thomas 69% 79% 69% 62% 70%
Alito 79% 76% 72% 52% 70%
Average 69% 75% 66% 54%

Souter, as it turns out, is more “liberal” than Ginsburg and Breyer, as measured by the frequency of disagreements with the Court’s more conservative wing. (I admit surprise at finding Breyer close to the center with Kennedy — for the Court’s current term, at least. UPDATE: More accurately, Kennedy is left-of-center, along with Breyer. See UPDATE 2 at this post.)

So, if Souter retires at the end of the current term, his replacement is unlikely to shift the Court’s ideological balance — in the near future.  Over the longer run, however, the appointment of a relatively young, Left-wing justice would shift the Court’s balance, if that appointee outlasts two or three of the Court’s conservatives, who are then replaced by persons of the Left. (UPDATE: The long run may come sooner rather than later. See UPDATE 2 at this post.)

Furthermore, Obama probably will have the opportunity in his current term of office to appoint two more relatively young, Left-wing justices (replacements for Stevens and Ginsburg), who could outlast all of the Court’s conservatives. That would set the stage for the creation of a solidly Left-wing Court, if Democrats continue to hold the White House and Republicans are unable or unwilling to block the sitting president’s Court nominees.

Incidentally — but perhaps germanely — Republican presidents have fared poorly when it comes to picking justices. Of the 18 appointments by Republican presidents since 1953, seven proved to be closet “liberals” or centrists: Warren, Brennan, Blackmun, Stevens, Kennedy, O’Connor, and Souter. Democrats, on the other hand, have appointed five justices since 1953,  only one of whom (White) revealed himself as somewhat conservative.

As for the present Court, Republican presidents selected seven members; a Democrat (Clinton) chose the other two. Clinton’s picks have been reliably “liberal.” The GOP picks break down like this: four conservatives, one middle-of-the-roader, and two “liberals.” Et tu, Brute?

I take the difference between Republicans and Democrats to be symptomatic of the way the parties play the game of politics. Republicans are prone to misguided even-handedness. For Democrats, winning is everything.
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* What passes today for liberalism is so illiberal that I can no longer use the word without enclosing it in quotation marks, as a short way of saying “so-called liberal.” Many “liberals,” knowing that their appellation is tainted, now prefer “progressive,” though “regressive” is a better description of the “liberal-progressive” philosophy. Mike Rappaport of The Right Coast has more to say about the modern meaning of “liberal.”