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Brian Gilmore is a poet and public interest attorney and contributing writer with Ebony-Jet Online.
He is also a columnist with the Progressive Media Project.
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| Replacing Justice Souter |
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| Friday, 01 May 2009 18:13 |
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Consider the following. Souter, the famous "stealth" nominee with no paper trail, the one George H.W. Bush didn't want to fight over, has emerged as a great jurist for liberal causes on the court. He was on the right side of Bush v. Gore, the now infamous Supreme Court decision that got George W. Bush into office, and he has consistently used a pragmatic approach to respect stare decisis while at the same time not wanting to court to go backwards legally in the U.S. But if John McCain would have beaten Barack Obama and become President and Souter resigns as we are told he is going to do, another Thomas-Scalia retro-jurist would be nominated, and who knows what the country would look like years from now. McCain was on record as wanting a Scalia or Thomas type for the court. But forget about Souter for a moment. The real question is - who shall Mr. Obama nominate? Here's your writer's prototype. The nominee should be left of center. The nominee should have impeccable credentials. The nominee should be between 40-45 years old. The nominee should be a woman. Why? The court needs a major shift if you ask me and a woman with progressive and pragmatic credentials in the solution. Case in point: if Justice Souter is considered a liberal, something is amiss here. Souter is not a liberal. Justice Anthony Kennedy is considered a centrist on this court and he is a solid conservative. The thing is, the court is so far to the right that the center is not a real center. The GOP doesn't nominate pragmatic mavericks types like John Paul Stevens anymore; they nominate right wing ideologues - "Manchurian" judges, my brother said the other day. On the court right now are four hardcore right wing ideologues: Alito, Roberts, Thomas, and Scalia. Scalia and Thomas call themselves "originalists" meaning the Constitution's text doesn't change from generation to generation. The problem with this approach is that the document did change and it had to change. Slavery was once legal in that document and blacks and women could not vote. Is Thomas against the 13th Amendment? Is Scalia opposed to sufferage? The document doesn't state that women can use birth control but to suggest that women need a new law to provide them with a right to do something completely private in their own home is foolishness. It is also sexist. As Thurgood Marshall noted (and others), the Constitution is a living document. To suggest that it isn't, is convenience. Thus, I am asking for Obama to name a woman to the high court. A young woman. A progressive, liberal thinker who can defend her positions and records against the best. I dare the GOP to oppose a woman who is John Roberts' polar opposite in ideology but his equal in legal skills. Mr. Obama should dare them as well. |
How delicate history is, folks. Supreme Court Justice David Souter, it is alleged, is resigning. How close the GOP came to their dream. Heaven might have to wait.