David Lat joins Sarah and David to break down recent Supreme Court trends and discuss Lat’s legal fiction novel, Supreme Ambitions.
The Agenda:
—Is the shadow docket problem solved?
—Supreme Court approval rating
—Stabilizing the Supreme Court
—Lat’s pick for most interesting justice
—Who will win the text, history, and tradition fight?
—Advice for law students
—Lat’s book, Supreme Ambitions
—Stranger than legal fiction
—Male authors writing female protagonists
—Lat’s favorite legal writing
—The return of crime procedurals
To get show notes:
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/advisoryopinions/fixing-the-supreme-court/
#law #supremecourt #reform #politics #conservative
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The part of the polls that should concern the court isn’t the drop in popularity. It’s the change in perceived motivation. In a September 2020 gallop poll, 62% said the court was mainly concerned with the law. A recent poll had 57% said the court decisions were mainly about politics. When the court is perceived as just a political institution, that is a problem (especially when it is true).
On Barrett: My sense is her independent streak is an excellent thing and comes by way of her being a scholar first. Scholars have better range, more knowledge and greater thoughtfulness than career judges. If there were a trivia night for legal history, american history and constitutional history, I'd put my coins on a Barrett or Kagan over anyone else on the court. And there isnt a single person on the court who isn't brilliant from birth with a work ethic to match.
Liberals complained that Barrett was only appointed to the seventh circuit for a couple years to give her experience for her soon to be supreme court nomination. They are probably right. And utterly wrong to use that fairly certain fact as a criticism.
Study and teach. Scholarship first. A couple years on a circuit court is plenty for the handful of highly intelligent supreme court prospects to learn their coming role.
And, in my (useless) opinion, we'd have a better court with more independence, but also more subtlety in thought and more coherence from one opinion to the next.
Y’all are a bit trapped in cognitive dissonance where originalism is concerned. Originalism is merely a veil of legitimacy given to conservative majority decisions that remain in the category of “this is what I wanted to do, so I did it.” Some things do seem to lie in an area where the logic of originalism rings true, but some don’t, like Trump v United States. The inconsistencies make it clear that it’s merely a veil. It’s not actually legitimate.