The Supremes
Today was a big day on the judicial circuit. Justice Stephen Breyer, a mild-mannered, intellectual and very well-respected liberal judge has been an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court for 28 years. Today he announced his retirement at the end of the current term of the court in June. He has not had the high-profile that someone like RBG had, but it is said that his behind-the-scenes supporting work was quite valuable to the court’s work. As we all know, Trump got three bites at the SCOTUS apple and stuffed the court with a dangerously libertarian anti-masker, a frat-boy who may well have forced himself on young women back in the day and a rabid right-to-life advocate. With those three holding down the right-wing line along with the hard-to-fathom and grossly conflicted solo black Associate Justice (also accused in his day of forcibly womanizing), and the original of all originalists. That makes a sure-thing majority five vote on most conservative-favorite issues, something the Republican Party has been positioning for over the past forty years (since the time of Ronald Reagan). It so happens that the court has three liberal members (Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan) and then, a Chief Justice in John Roberts who has proven to be more balanced (note, I say balanced and not moderate).
There are several controversial issues with Justice Breyer’s announcement. To begin with, Breyer has been under intense Democratic pressure to retire at age 83 (RBG was 87 when she died while on the court) while the Democrats control the Senate confirmation process (assuming no one on their team fades on the issue). Presumably, their justification for whatever pressure they have chosen to put on Breyer, directly or indirectly, is that Republicans have played games with the Senate confirmation process and they feel that at least keeping the three-liberal minority in tact is justified. Of course, SCOTUS is not supposed to be subject to political influence, but that fiction has all but been thrown out the window. Mitch McConnell blocked Barack Obama from exercising his right as President to nominate and place into consideration Merrick Garland and that led to Donald Trump having a vacancy to fill immediately on assuming office, which he did with Garland’s subordinate Neil Gorsuch, which began the tipping of the Court to the right. That was immediately followed with the announced retirement of Anthony Kennedy at age 82…something Republicans wanted to see happen for the same reason Democrats wanted Breyer to retire. That opened the door for Brett Kavanaugh. The unexpected demise of RBG, despite occurring in the waning months of the Trump presidency (Mitch made no apologies for the hypocrisy of pushing through a replacement immediately before an election) led to her replacement by Amy Coney Barrett. And so, here we are.
The controversy about the cause of Breyer’s retirement is hardly worth discussing since the politicization of the Court is such a routine situation these days. But then there is the issue that President Biden, at a critical moment on the campaign trail, right before the all-important South Carolina Primary, made a pledge to the electorate that if he had a SCOTUS appointment opportunity, he would nominate a black woman to the Court. That is coming under fire by Republicans with amnesia, who have forgotten that Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of libertarian Republicans, made a similar campaign pledge to nominate the first woman to the Supreme Court as a means of mollifying the female voters of America. President Biden has already today verified that he intends to honor his pledge, so the conversation among cable news pundits is about which black woman is best positioned to go quickly through the Senate confirmation process and who adheres to the principles espoused by Stephen Breyer.
I have always wondered about how jurists feel about being nominated to the Supreme Court. Clearly, it is a high honor for anyone who feels they are a legal scholar. Associate Justices earn $244,000 for that honor. That’s well above the average income of folks living in the nation’s capitol, but about equal to what a graduating MBA student from a good school might earn. First year lawyers at top firms earn $205,000 to give some perspective about how modest the payroll for SCOTUS Justices is. In addition, the nature of being a Supreme Court Justice is that you are likely severely restricted form other outside income enhancement opportunities, given the possibility of conflicts of interest or the semblance thereof. That, plus the likelihood that the appointment is for life would make one need to consider if the lifestyle of an Supreme Court Justice is your cup of tea. I wonder if someone at SCOTUS is privately charged with keeping the finances of the Justices well enough monitored and oiled, if necessary, that they never run afoul of any lifestyle or conflict situations.
Tonight, even only watching a little bit of MSNBC, I have already heard the top three black women who have the jurist chops to be seriously considered for nomination. One has been successfully approved by the Senate already for two lesser judicial appointments. In fact, one of those appointments is considered a sort of farm club for SCOTUS Justices, so the jockeying is certainly underway.
There is one name I have not heard mentioned today, but I would like to posit this alternative. One of the behind-the-scenes (only ever-so-slightly) concerns in Democratic circles is who the Democrats will be nominating for the presidency in 2024. The obvious and incumbent candidate is Joe Biden, who will be 82 years old at that point and be the oldest person ever elected to the presidency…a record he ALREADY holds (in that event he would leave office at age 86). The most common alternative to a sitting president is always the person holding the Veep spot, but rarely is that person considered up to the challenge, for valid reasons or not. Vice President Kamala Harris is not only no exception to that rule, she has had a particularly difficult first year in the shitty job. With a boss with an abysmally weak poll status, her polling is even worse.
My proposition is clearly an expedient. I propose that Kamala be nominated for the open Breyer seat on SCOTUS. That serves several purposes. She is a proven and respected ex-prosecutor, so the courtroom is not foreign to her. As a nationally elected person, she should surely be an acceptable nominee that has been thoroughly vetted for any closet skeletons. We not only get a top legal mind on the Court, but we solve a serious Democratic problem in advance for 2024. We might even help the blue efforts in the midterms later this year with a good replacement Veep candidate. She may not be Diana Ross, but I somehow feel that Kamala may be the best choice for the newest Supreme.