Nov 15, 2023·edited Nov 15, 2023Liked by David Lat
Saying that the court should expand the pool of people who argue before it is something that seems appealing until you think about it a bit.
Look, either who argues before the court does or doesn't make a difference in the quality or direction of their opinions. If not then it seems like oral arguments themselves represent more of a liability than benefit so let's assume it does.
In that case, then one would tend to assume that experience and familiarity with the court would help the advocates do this job better. Just look at the performance of the PD in Raihmi to see why this tends to be the case. And surely probably the most important thing for the court is having high quality opinions (not to mention reaching, if not correct, at least consistent results) so it feels very shortsighted to just dismiss all these concerns in favor of the feel good position of more people getting to argue before the court.
And the problem with just allowing more access is there is no way to guarantee the people with the outside expertise end up arguing the cases where that matters (while having SCOTUS expertise always matters).
Now the narrower concern that the court should have a set of specialists but those specialists should be more reflective of the country along gender or race or etc lines might have a stronger prima facia case but I honestly just don't think this matters much since the general public will only look at the racial and gender makeup of the court. But in the long run this will probably shift to match the makeup of the court clerks and if the justices don't care strongly about representation in their clerks I'm skeptical the nation will either.
This was excellently written, and Goldstein’s input on how recent Supreme Court judges have approached decision making is what many Americans fail to understand.
I think that that may be the case with a one of, but not with Thomas and the scope of the gifts lavished on him, effectively doing an end run around the honorarium limitatiion rules, disclosure rules. I did an oped on that they I will send.
Conservative decisions, reversing precedent, rendered by a justice wined and dined by the Koch brothers and comparable players plainly has an impact on how the decisions are received.
Fair point, Judge. Would you agree with the sentence if it said that the decisions will "largely" determine the verdict on SCOTUS? I do think it's the rulings that drive public opinion (even though, as you note, personal conduct can affect how they are received). That is probably a more precise statement of my position.
Saying that the court should expand the pool of people who argue before it is something that seems appealing until you think about it a bit.
Look, either who argues before the court does or doesn't make a difference in the quality or direction of their opinions. If not then it seems like oral arguments themselves represent more of a liability than benefit so let's assume it does.
In that case, then one would tend to assume that experience and familiarity with the court would help the advocates do this job better. Just look at the performance of the PD in Raihmi to see why this tends to be the case. And surely probably the most important thing for the court is having high quality opinions (not to mention reaching, if not correct, at least consistent results) so it feels very shortsighted to just dismiss all these concerns in favor of the feel good position of more people getting to argue before the court.
And the problem with just allowing more access is there is no way to guarantee the people with the outside expertise end up arguing the cases where that matters (while having SCOTUS expertise always matters).
Now the narrower concern that the court should have a set of specialists but those specialists should be more reflective of the country along gender or race or etc lines might have a stronger prima facia case but I honestly just don't think this matters much since the general public will only look at the racial and gender makeup of the court. But in the long run this will probably shift to match the makeup of the court clerks and if the justices don't care strongly about representation in their clerks I'm skeptical the nation will either.
This was excellently written, and Goldstein’s input on how recent Supreme Court judges have approached decision making is what many Americans fail to understand.
Thank you! Tom is always a pleasure to interview. I had to leave a lot of good material out of the piece.
How about a follow up piece with the rest of the interview?
Excellent idea—keep an eye out!
I think that that may be the case with a one of, but not with Thomas and the scope of the gifts lavished on him, effectively doing an end run around the honorarium limitatiion rules, disclosure rules. I did an oped on that they I will send.
I don’t agree with your last sentence. Deeply
Conservative decisions, reversing precedent, rendered by a justice wined and dined by the Koch brothers and comparable players plainly has an impact on how the decisions are received.
Fair point, Judge. Would you agree with the sentence if it said that the decisions will "largely" determine the verdict on SCOTUS? I do think it's the rulings that drive public opinion (even though, as you note, personal conduct can affect how they are received). That is probably a more precise statement of my position.