President Reagan and Sandra Day O’Connor
Presidents deal with Supreme Court nominations differently, but it’s still instructive to note the differences in how identity politics and personal biography has seeped into the process.
Once, presidents simply submitted names and made brief announcements. But since Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy put the hurting on Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, the game has changed. Presidents now feel the need to cast their picks not as marble models of rectitude and immaculate qualifications but of flesh and blood folks who ought not be roughed up by a bunch of Senators snarling behind their cap-toothed smiles.
That being said, President Obama carried the ball a little farther today with his introduction of judge Sonia Sotomayor as his first judicial pick. To get an idea, compare the introductions of the four women ever nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Compare the ballooning verbosity and blathery rhetoric over the years.
Sandra Day O’Connor
It took Ronald Reagan 560 words to announce the first woman to be appointed to the court on July 7, 1981. As for the historic nature of the pick, Reagan sought to make clear that she wasn’t a beneficiary of affirmative action, but the right person for the job who happened to be a woman. His remarks relating to her gender were limited to the following:
“Needless to say, most of the speculation has centered on the question of whether I would consider a woman to fill this first vacancy. As the press has accurately pointed out, during my campaign for the Presidency I made a commitment that one of my first appointments to the Supreme Court vacancy would be the most qualified woman that I could possibly find.
Now, this is not to say that I would appoint a woman merely to do so. That would not be fair to women nor to future generations of all Americans whose lives are so deeply affected by decisions of the Court. Rather, I pledged to appoint a woman who meets the very high standards that I demand of all court appointees. I have identified such a person.
So today, I’m pleased to announce that upon completion of all the necessary checks by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, I will send to the Senate the nomination of Judge Sandra Day O’Connor of Arizona Court of Appeals for confirmation as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
She is truly a person for all seasons, possessing those unique qualities of temperament, fairness, intellectual capacity, and devotion to the public good which have characterized the 101 brethren who have preceded her. I commend her to you, and I urge the Senate’s swift bipartisan confirmation so that as soon as possible she may take her seat on the Court and her place in history.
Ruth Bader Ginsberg
President Bill Clinton indulged himself in 1,494 words on June 14, 1993 to announce the nomination of the second woman on the court. He also gave considerable time to her service to the cause of woman’s rights. And in terms of identity politics, Clinton upped the ante by making a direct equation between the civil rights movement and women’s rights. His remarks on her gender and personal experiences included the following:
“[Over] the course of a lifetime in her pioneering work in behalf of the women of this country, she has compiled a truly historic record of achievement in the finest traditions of American law and citizenship…
Judge Ginsburg received her undergraduate degree from Cornell. She attended both Harvard and Columbia Law Schools and served on the Law Reviews of both institutions, the first woman to have earned this distinction. She was a law clerk to a federal judge, a law professor at Rutgers and Columbia Law Schools. She argued six landmark cases on behalf of women before the United States Supreme Court and, happily, won five out of six…
It is important to me that Judge Ginsburg came to her views and attitudes by doing, not merely by reading and studying. Despite her enormous ability and academic achievements, she could not get a job with a law firm in the early 1960s because she was a woman and the mother of a small child.
Having experienced discrimination, she devoted the next 20 years of her career to fighting it and making this country a better place for our wives, our mothers, our sisters and our daughters. She, herself, argued and won many of the women’s rights cases before the Supreme Court in the 1970s. Many admirers of her work say that she is to the women’s movement what former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was to the movement for the rights of African Americans. I can think of no greater compliment to bestow on an American lawyer.”
Harriet Miers
Not usually prone to logorrhea, President George W. Bush likely knew he had some ground to cover when he used 1,194 words to announce his appointment of his longtime lawyer Miers to the court on Oct. 3, 2005. Before the moth was over, Miers withdrew under heavy fire from conservatives.
But having just scored big with Chief Justice John Roberts, Bush thought he might get his way with the Miers pick, and in announcing her, went on at length about her credentials as a feminist – drawing a direct parallel to O’Connor and casting Miers as a groundbreaker for women like Ginsberg.
Acknowledging Miers lack of traditional judicial qualifications and unproven conservative perspective, Bush talked a great deal her service to religious charities and other feel good bio points.
Bush’s effort to use identity politics to insulate his old friend from criticism included the following:
“Harriet was born and raised in Dallas, Texas. She attended public schools. When illness struck her family during her freshman year in college, Harriet went to work to help pay for her own education. She went on to receive a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and a law degree from Southern Methodist University…
Harriet’s greatest inspiration was her mother, who taught her the difference between right and wrong and instilled in Harriet the conviction that she could do anything she set her mind to.
Inspired by the confidence, Harriet became a pioneer in the field of law, breaking down barriers to women that remain even after a generation — remain a generation after President Reagan appointed Justice O’Connor to the Supreme Court.
Harriet was the first woman to be hired at one of Dallas’ top law firms, the first woman to become president of that firm, the first woman to lead a large law firm in the state of Texas.
Harriet also became the first woman president of the Dallas Bar Association and the first woman elected president of the state bar of Texas.
In recognition of her achievements paving the way for women lawyers, Harriet’s colleagues in Texas have honored her with numerous awards, most recently the Sandra Day O’Connor Award for Professional Excellence….
Harriet has also earned a reputation for her deep compassion and abiding sense of duty. In Texas, she made it her mission to support better legal representation for the poor and underserved. As president of the Dallas bar, she called on her fellow lawyers to volunteer and staff free neighborhood clinics.
She led by example. She put in long hours of pro bono work. Harriet Miers has given generously of her time and talent by serving as a leader with more than a dozen community groups and charities, including the Young Women’s Christian Association, Childcare Dallas, Goodwill Industries, Exodus Ministries, Meals on Wheels and the Legal Aid Society.
Harriet’s life has been characterized by service to others. And she will bring that came passion for service to the Supreme Court of the United States…
I’ve known Harriet for more than a decade. I know her heart. I know her character. I know that Harriet’s mother is proud of her today. And I know her father would be proud of her, too.”
Sonia Sotomayor
The relentlessly loquacious President Obama used 1,510 words to extol the virtues of Judge Sotomayor today. And most of what the president had to say was about identity politics.
Like Bush was with Miers, Obama was looking to insulate his pick from criticism by casting her in a sympathetic light and as part of a protected class.
But aside from his windiness, Obama is also different from his predecessors in that the identity politics are actually discussed as qualifications themselves. Reagan sold Sandra Day O’Connor as the best person for the job regardless of gender who was made only more attractive by the fact that she brought diversity to the court. But 28 years later, Obama sold Sotomayor as more qualified than others because of her diversity.
His remarks included the following on race, identity, gender and personal experience:
“But as impressive and meaningful as Judge Sotomayor’s sterling credentials in the law is her own extraordinary journey. Born in the South Bronx, she was raised in a housing project not far from Yankee Stadium, making her a lifelong Yankee’s fan. I hope this will not disqualify her in the eyes of the New Englanders in the Senate.
Sonia’s parents came to New York from Puerto Rico during the Second World War, her mother as part of the Women’s Army Corps. And, in fact, her mother is here today and I’d like us all to acknowledge Sonia’s mom. Sonia’s mom has been a little choked up. But she, Sonia’s mother, began a family tradition of giving back to this country. Sonia’s father was a factory worker with a 3rd-grade education who didn’t speak English. But like Sonia’s mother, he had a willingness to work hard, a strong sense of family, and a belief in the American Dream.
When Sonia was nine, her father passed away. And her mother worked six days a week as a nurse to provide for Sonia and her brother — who is also here today, is a doctor and a terrific success in his own right. But Sonia’s mom bought the only set of encyclopedias in the neighborhood, sent her children to a Catholic school called Cardinal Spellman out of the belief that with a good education here in America all things are possible.
With the support of family, friends, and teachers, Sonia earned scholarships to Princeton, where she graduated at the top of her class, and Yale Law School, where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal, stepping onto the path that led her here today.
Along the way she’s faced down barriers, overcome the odds, lived out the American Dream that brought her parents here so long ago. And even as she has accomplished so much in her life, she has never forgotten where she began, never lost touch with the community that supported her.
What Sonia will bring to the Court, then, is not only the knowledge and experience acquired over a course of a brilliant legal career, but the wisdom accumulated from an inspiring life’s journey.
It’s my understanding that Judge Sotomayor’s interest in the law was sparked as a young girl by reading the Nancy Drew series — (laughter) — and that when she was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of eight, she was informed that people with diabetes can’t grow up to be police officers or private investigators like Nancy Drew. And that’s when she was told she’d have to scale back her dreams.
Well, Sonia, what you’ve shown in your life is that it doesn’t matter where you come from, what you look like, or what challenges life throws your way — no dream is beyond reach in the United States of America.
And when Sonia Sotomayor ascends those marble steps to assume her seat on the highest court of the land, America will have taken another important step towards realizing the ideal that is etched above its entrance: Equal justice under the law.”
It may not need to be said anymore that a woman is just as qualified as a man for a job as Reagan did, but is there something sexist about including gender and race as a qualification for a job – that a woman or a hispanic applies the law differently than a man? More likely, the agressive spinning of the nominations of female canidates for the court has likely hurt the concept of equality.
