Supreme Court Appointments Are Rare
Posted at 12:08 am on Sunday, May 3, 2009, in Obama Administration, and tagged obama, supreme court.
Just a few thoughts on the surprising news (well, surprising to most, I assume) that President Barack Obama will be nominating a Supreme Court Justice following the now-planned retirement of Justice David Souter…
This doesn’t happen that often. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both served two full terms, and they each made two appointments to the Supreme Court. And now it seems that Obama may have the opportunity to nominate two in his first term. (Yes, I realize I am being presumptuous by referring to it as his first term, but it truly is a hopeful time.)
Every news report seems to mention the near fact that the political make-up of the court will not change, but that does not matter. Getting younger is what counts. And that is why Bush’s appointment of John Roberts as Chief Justice was such a big deal. Roberts, now 54, is only the seventeenth Chief Justice in U.S. history (and one had only served six months as a recess appointment). Meanwhile, there have now been 44 presidents and 47 vice-presidents. (Well, 43 presidents if you don’t count Grover Cleveland, former mayor of Buffalo, twice.) Supreme Court Justices simply do not come by all that often. If Roberts follows precedent, he will serve for twenty years or so. That has a much more lasting effect on a nation than a president’s signing of an omnibus spending bill. Souter’s retirement is a gift to Obama. No matter what transpires during his presidency — for good or bad, in either one or two terms — he will have a measurable impact for two decades or more with this nomination and subsequent appointment.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is expected to retire soon as well. Again, when that happens, the news reports will predictably state that any Obama nomination will not change the political make-up of the court, which currently leans conservative. But again, that does not matter. Getting younger does. If Obama appoints two liberal Justices around age 50, although it will not provide for a seismic shift in ideology of the Court (as the replacement of Sandra Day O’Connor with Samuel Alito had accomplished), it will certainly be systemically substantive. That is why Obama’s victory in 2008 was so important. Obama will not re-balance the court, at least yet, but he will replace the gears.
Let me stress once more how seldom these appointments happen. The next Justice who is expected to retire for age (besides Ginsburg who may retire first for health reasons) is John Paul Stevens, aged 89. Justice Stevens joined the Supreme Court in 1975. Read that again: 1975. That is 33 years ago. These simply do not happen that often, and with Stevens’ advanced age, Obama may have a unique opportunity to appoint three Supreme Court Justices (albeit none of them Chief Justice, barring anything unexpected) in his first term alone. Again, I stress ‘first’ term just as a measure of my optimism in this young administration leading our great republic.
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