Ask some activists on the left the kind of Supreme Court justice they would like to see a President Obama appoint, and the name you hear most is the same justice they most often denounce.
They want their own Antonin Scalia. Or rather, an anti-Scalia, an individual who can easily articulate a liberal interpretation of the Constitution, offer a quick sound bite and be prepared to mix it up with conservative activists beyond the marble and red velvet of the Supreme Court.
We are accustomed to think of the Supreme Court as a bastion of liberalism, which was certainly the case in decades past, but concerted efforts by conservatives to reshape the court have largely been effective, only Democrats have nominated three justices in the past 40 years, and only two of the current groups. And each of the current justices, with the exception of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, was more conservative than the one they replaced and the results are now being felt in decisions that are pro-business and anti-civil rights. In fact, we are told, there are no real liberals along the lines of Warren, Blackmun and Marshall on the court at the moment. Only centrists who vote to the left and write marginally liberal decisions.
Liberal groups are hoping to replicate conservative efforts to turn the Supreme Court composition into an election issue. The two oldest justices are the two most liberal: 88 year old John Paul Stevens and 75 year old Ginsburg. Given the tight balance between the two sides, the next president has the chance to drastically transform the court.
The article suggests that the next president might break with recent tradition and shy away from nominating a reclusive judge to a more outgoing politician. This would not be a first:
There is a substantial list of justices who once held political office. Most famously, President Dwight D. Eisenhower made good on his promise of an appointment to his onetime rival, California governor Earl Warren.
But the jobs could hardly be more different -- the somewhat solitary pursuits of a justice versus the glad-handing and collaborative responsibilities of a politician. But someone who has been tested by campaigns for public office might be more comfortable in the public arena, argued Dawn Johnsen, a former Clinton administration official who now teaches law at Indiana University, who said there "is a desire to have justices talking to the American people beyond their opinions."
