Let’s ignore for a few moments the media’s focus on imagined personality and pretend outrage and actually focus on some issues; like how the next president of the United States will impact every one of us. The next president, should he or she last four full years in office, is likely to nominate two United States Supreme Court Justices. That is not guaranteed, but it is statistically likely as several of the current justices are quite elderly. Of all the issues before us, real and imagined, the president if the only elected official who gets to nominate replacement justices; so for all of us, whom a president is likely to nominate is one of the most important issues we should consider while casting our votes for the office of president.
This particular election, the issue of the supreme court nomination is more important than some elections because there are two likely nominations instead of one. In fact, given the huge advantage any incumbent has in an election, the next president is likely to serve two terms and there could be four or five nominations! At the moment, the current court is unbalanced and leans pretty far over in support of large corporate interests over equal rights and equal pay for women (Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.) and religious values over a civil rights (Gonzales v. Carhart). In fact, the Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. ruling may be the most significant case the court has had in 20 years when all of it’s ramifications have been felt. The majority of the court ruled along the lines of a technicality in order to favor their already chosen sponsor. It shows us that the highest court in the land has indeed already been bought and that justice will not always be served. This court the most in need of some constitutional law experts in more than 75 years…
Barack Obama is just such an expert. He worked as a civil rights lawyer and taught constitutional law for over a decade in the Chicago area. No other widely discussed presidential or vice-presidential candidate has anywhere near the experience Obama does on this, except for Hillary Clinton (herself an expert on constitutional law). Barack Obama does not have judicial experience, but he’d make an excellent justice himself, and he certainly will pick excellent judges to nominate to the supreme court. In fact, given Obama’s tendency to make his decisions carefully, and only after consulting experts, it is reasonably certain that he’ll nominate very moderate justices as president (which will disappoint many of my leftist-activist friends a great deal), and not just moderates, but fellow experts in constitutional law who get us back our civil rights.
John McCain has already shown us exactly how much consideration he’ll give to important decisions like this one. His choice of Sarah Palin as running make is political, personal, radical, and distracting; but it is not with any thought about what is best for America or what makes the most sense. No one really knows who he’d nominate for the supreme court, because he has been quite ready to be very random and reactionary. Compared to him, Obama is downright boring, but in a good way. We already have some pretty good guesses at who the first supreme court justice nominees from Obama would be (these are just guesses): Judge Diane Wood (7th Cir.) or Professor Cass Sunstein. Like them or not, they are both technically qualified, relatively moderate, and very serious about constitutional law and civil rights.
Kojo Nnamdi had an interesting section on his August 26th show: Imagining an Obama Supreme Court with Cass Sunstein as a guest. He brought up the right-wing talking point of so-called activist judges and suggested we change that definition to be more objective, more empirical rather than couching the term in prejudicial terms that are misleading the public.
On this, the most important of many issues facing us as we chose whom to vote for in November, Obama is the clear winner by many, many miles. This is certainly not the only issue I favor Obama on, but it alone would carry enough weight to make me happy to vote for Obama in November. I have complete confidence that he will nominate the best justices, and that our constitution and civil rights will be defended by President Obama.
