Christopher L. Eisgruber: Justice Stevens Will Not Be Easily Replaced
[Christopher L. Eisgruber is provost of Princeton University and the author of "The Next Justice: Repairing the Supreme Court Appointments Process." He clerked for Justice John Paul Stevens in 1989 and 1990.]
President Obama has said that he will seek to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens with someone who has "similar qualities."
If the president is looking for another brilliant lawyer to join the court's liberal wing, he might succeed. If, however, he wants to find someone with the kind of quirky independence that Stevens demonstrated for much of his judicial career, the president has little or no chance. The constitutional landscape has changed too much since Stevens was appointed in 1975.
Stevens is America's last pre-Roe justice — in other words, the last justice chosen before the abortion issue reshaped the Supreme Court appointment process. In strictly chronological terms, of course, Stevens was appointed two years after the court decided Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 case that first protected the abortion right. But when Stevens faced the Senate, Roe had not yet become ground zero in America's culture wars....
When I clerked for Stevens in 1989-90, his idiosyncratic jurisprudence frustrated the law clerks working for Thurgood Marshall and William Brennan, the court's two most liberal justices....
American politics changed, and so did the court. In the late 1970s, the religious right became a major force in American politics. Ronald Reagan promised to appoint justices who would overturn Roe. Interest groups on the left and the right drew battle lines every time a Supreme Court vacancy occurred....
Stevens changed too. He admits that he reversed himself about the death penalty, which he now regards as unconstitutional. Most observers think that his views about affirmative action have become more liberal, although Stevens contends that his early and recent votes are consistent with one another.
What changed most during Stevens' tenure was the court itself. It became more conservative and more polarized. Its docket evolved into a set of which-side-are-you-on choices between clearly defined liberal and conservative positions....
Read entire article at LA Times
President Obama has said that he will seek to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens with someone who has "similar qualities."
If the president is looking for another brilliant lawyer to join the court's liberal wing, he might succeed. If, however, he wants to find someone with the kind of quirky independence that Stevens demonstrated for much of his judicial career, the president has little or no chance. The constitutional landscape has changed too much since Stevens was appointed in 1975.
Stevens is America's last pre-Roe justice — in other words, the last justice chosen before the abortion issue reshaped the Supreme Court appointment process. In strictly chronological terms, of course, Stevens was appointed two years after the court decided Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 case that first protected the abortion right. But when Stevens faced the Senate, Roe had not yet become ground zero in America's culture wars....
When I clerked for Stevens in 1989-90, his idiosyncratic jurisprudence frustrated the law clerks working for Thurgood Marshall and William Brennan, the court's two most liberal justices....
American politics changed, and so did the court. In the late 1970s, the religious right became a major force in American politics. Ronald Reagan promised to appoint justices who would overturn Roe. Interest groups on the left and the right drew battle lines every time a Supreme Court vacancy occurred....
Stevens changed too. He admits that he reversed himself about the death penalty, which he now regards as unconstitutional. Most observers think that his views about affirmative action have become more liberal, although Stevens contends that his early and recent votes are consistent with one another.
What changed most during Stevens' tenure was the court itself. It became more conservative and more polarized. Its docket evolved into a set of which-side-are-you-on choices between clearly defined liberal and conservative positions....