Biden’s nominee for the Supreme Court is the most qualified nominee, ever. It is easy to question this presumption if you admit to racism and misogyny. Ketanji brown Jackson is the best qualified candidate in our lifetimes, although it is less stressed and equally absurd.
1619 and CRT. Now, GOP Senators are in bad faith and can vote against Judge Jackson. He is the most absurdly qualified Justice that we have ever had. They’re not black synonyms. This is a Black woman. That’s it. This is the problem.
— Wajahat Ali (@WajahatAli) March 22, 2022
The Washington Post has done its part to help her carry the torch by showing her qualifications through graphics that compare her with seated Supreme Court justices.
One can see the qualifications required to be in the top position of jurisprudence by looking at the following: “Public High School”It is a necessary qualification to hold the job. I have a tendency to be suspicious of it.
In fact, beginning her SCOTUS resume with “public high school” seems downright silly. Like most people, I went to public high school. Although I didn’t think it would be helping to build my resume for Supreme Court, the Washington Post has. Kagan and Alito attended the same public high school as Breyer, Breyer, and Alito. Because she was on the HS debate squad, it is likely that she would have ruined Billy Madison’s head-tohead.
Amy Coney Barrett, the only non Ivy Leaguer, is it. The insistence that the Ivy League law schools produce super lawyers is easily dispelled by Yale law students acting like six-year-olds, fighting free speech. I worked against Ivy League lawyers. They were all good and some not so great. One case was tried to bring down a Harvard graduate. He told me that he had been a Harvard graduate (which he did about 50 times), and I won. I don’t care if Jackson attended Harvard Law or a night school; if she can’t articulate what was the basis for Dred Scott, maybe she’s not a fit for SCOTUS.
Clerking at the Supreme Court might be all that is common between the majority and I think that this qualifies me to serve as a guide for a SCOTUS nominee. Why? Because it’s on-the-job training – like a plumber’s assistant. There’s nothing like watching the sausage get made.
WaPo cites Jackson’s two years as a Federal Public Defender. A spokesperson for the Brennan Center for Justice called Jackson’s experience as a PD invaluable and said:
“Having to navigate the criminal justice system on behalf of poor defendants gives a judge an important perspective on how the criminal justice system operates and on the potential unfairness or hurdles within it.”
But not really. Let’s take, for example the last term forSCOTUS. One of the criminal appeals heard was an 8ThAmendment (cruel punishment and unusual punishment) case. The court hears 100-150 cases each term – so taking the high end, two criminal cases represents 0.0133% of the docket. The SCOTUS does not hear criminal appeals in a large number of cases. My limited experience in a federal PD officer is of no practical significance.
Next is her time on the sentencing commission, in which she “helped rewrite guidelines to reduce recommend penalties for drug related offenses” — and that’s nice, but will have little relevancy for a Justice. Although WaPo’s cherry-picked, law professor out of Texas opined that her experience on the sentencing commission will be important – no, it likely won’t be. It is the Supreme Court that decides constitutionality issues. In short – is “it,” or is it not, constitutional. It seems unlikely that her experience reviewing federal drug conviction guidelines, will be used as sitting Justice.
These two final qualifications are even more important.
Hers would be the second sitting justice who was District judge (trial judge). One is Sotomeyor. Sotomayor is an awful Justice and asks ridiculous questions all the time. Jackson, too, has been overturned a dozen time, and with significant rebuttals, by the Court of Appeals.
She is the last to be elected on a Court of Appeals. Kagan is exempt from this requirement. It’s usually a prerequisite, like playing a few years in the minors before playing in the bigs. She did it. And so did everybody else, except Kagan.
In short, Jackson isn’t the most qualified nominee ever. What I’ve seen of her testimony has shown me the expected, Ivy League arrogance and haughtiness that, I think, is borne from her belief that her elevation in guaranteed and owed to her. No matter that she can’t define what a woman is, or the “why” for Dred Scott. She said the following when she was asked about the Constitution:
“I have not had any cases that have required me to develop a view on constitutional interpretation of text in the way that the Supreme Court has to do and has to have thought about the tools of interpretation.”
That answer isn’t exactly a Kamala Harris word salad – but for a SCOTUS nominee, it’s concerning.
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