Supreme Court Justices

America In 2012: African American President, Irish Catholic Vice President, Mormon Presidential Candidate, Supreme Court Of Catholics, Jews, Women, African American And Hispanic, And The Third Woman Secretary Of State!

In the midst of all the turmoil we are going through politically, America should sit back and marvel at how far this nation has come by 2012.

We have an African American President, Barack Obama!

We have an Irish Catholic Vice President, Joe Biden, the only Catholic since John F. Kennedy in 1960.

We have a Mormon Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney.

We have a Supreme Court consisting of six Catholics (Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor) and three Jews (Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan), and also an African American (Clarence Thomas), an Hispanic, (Sonia Sotomayor) and three women (Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan) on the Court.

And we have the third woman Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, after two earlier ones (Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice (one with Jewish heritage and one African American).

So we have a lot to be proud of in 2012, with the tremendous amount of diversity!

Tea Party People And Conservatives Take Note: The Constitution Established A Strong National Government, And The Amendments Have Made For A More Liberal, Nationalist Nation!

Tomorrow, the House of Representatives is spending taxpayer money to read the Constitution out loud, as a supposed lesson to the nation as to what the Constitution contains.

This is occurring due to the impact of the Tea Party Movement, but if that group and other conservatives really listen to and think about the words of the Constitution, they would realize what the Constitution is all about.

The Constitution was created to REPLACE the Articles of Confederation, a document that gave the states authority that led to chaos, anarchy and bankruptcy, and forced the hand of liberal nationalist Founding Fathers who realized that the country would not survive without a STRONGER NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.

The Constitution gave the US Congress tremendous and specific powers in Article 1, Section 8, the ELASTIC CLAUSE–necessary and proper for the common defense and the general welfare–, creating vague language that could be interpreted broadly, and has been by the Supreme Court over 200 years since the time of Chief Justice John Marshall.

Liberal nationalists brought about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights!

Liberal nationalists brought about the Civil Rights Amendments (13, 14, 15) in the years after the Civil War.

Liberal nationalists brought about the “Progressive” amendments on the federal income tax (16), direct election of the US Senate taken away from the state legislatures (17), and woman suffrage (19) in the second decade of the 20th century.

Liberal nationalists brought about the right of DC residents to vote for President (23), the end of the poll tax in all elections (24), and the 18 year old vote (26) in the decade of the mid to late 1960s and early 1970s.

The Constitution has been made the great document it is by the actions of the Founding Fathers and later generations of liberal nationalists, whether Federalist, Republican, or Democratic, and by Supreme Courts led by great Justices, including John Marshall, Louis Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo, William O. Douglas, Earl Warren, William Brennan, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens and many others!

No matter what conservatives, Republicans, and Tea Party activists might say or believe, it is LIBERAL and PROGRESSIVE activism that has led to the Constitution and its amendment improvements over two centuries!

Liberals and progressives stand together in pride as to their enactment and expansion of the document which inspires people all over the world, the greatest constitutional document ever created by the will of mankind!

Supreme Court Justices And Judicial Experience: Is It Required Or Preferred?

As Elena Kagan was nominated for the Supreme Court by President Obama yesterday, the debate began over the importance of a Supreme Court nominee having served as a judge before coming to the Court.

Every member of the present Supreme Court has been a Court of Appeals Judge, and one would think this was normal tradition and a requirement, neither of which thought is true in fact!

When one examines the history of the 111 Supreme Court Justices we have had to this moment, we discover a very different truth. Only 48 served as judges on the national or state levels. Three were Governors of their states (Earl Warren, Charles Evans Hughes, William Paterson). Seven have been Senators, including Hugo Black and Edward White. Seven have been Attorney General under a President. We have also seen other cabinet members–Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of Labor, Secretary pf the Navy, and even Postmaster General, chosen for the Supreme Court. Additionally, we have had a number of Solicitor Generals (the position Kagan holds), and Law School professors selected. But also interesting is many who are simply described as “Lawyers”!

The point is that many of the very best Supreme Court Justices have NOT been judges before coming to the high bench. This list includes John Marshall (Secretary of State), Joseph Story (Speaker of the Massachusetts House), Roger Taney (Lawyer), Edward White (Senator), Charles Evans Hughes (Governor), Louis Brandeis (Lawyer), William Howard Taft (President and Law School Professor), Harlan Fiske Stone (Attorney General), Hugo Black (Senator), William O. Douglas (SEC Chairman), Felix Frankfurter (Law School Professor), Frank Murphy (Attorney General), Robert H. Jackson (Attorney General), Tom Clark (Attorney General), Earl Warren (Governor), Arthur Goldberg (Secretary of Labor), and Thurgood Marshall (Solicitor General)!

When one analyzes this list, it is clear that it is not required or necessary that a Supreme Court nominee have had experience as a judge at any level. Worldly experience in other types of positions is important to promote diversity on the Court, beyond the issues of race, religion and gender!