This is really just a response to the commenters in my last thread. I’m sympathetic to the idea that no one should be considered for the Supreme Court if they are in their sixties, but I don’t agree with it. All things being equal, it’s better to have a nominee serve for thirty years than twenty, but if we really want to make this our primary concern, we should be looking at the health histories of nominees’ parents, grandparents, uncles, and aunts. Does cancer run in their family? How about diabetes? Is the candidate overweight? Did they ever smoke? Do they have high blood pressure? There are plenty of people who are unlikely to live to see seventy, and others who can easily live more than a century.
Unless you’ve done that kind of extensive research, you can’t assume that Hillary Clinton is likely to serve a shorter time on the Court than someone 10 or 20 years younger.
But, more than this, there are only nine Justices. If you find someone who would be a great Justice, you should have a better reason than age to reject them. There are too many uncertainties in life to guess how things will be in twenty or thirty years.
Finally, in certain circumstances, the Republicans will allow a more progressive judge to be confirmed if they are older. I don’t think this scenario necessarily applies to Clinton, but her age makes it less likely that she would be filibustered. In any case, I’d rather have Thurgood Marshall or William Brennan on the court for fifteen years than Stephen Breyer or Elena Kagan for thirty years.
I wasn’t really advocating Hillary Clinton for the Court, even though I think she’d be great. I was saying that Joe Biden needs Clinton on the Court if he wants to president. Either that, or maybe she doesn’t run for president again and Biden can count himself lucky.
I’m not advocating Biden for president, either. I need to see who is running against him and what they have to say before I advocate for anyone. I’m just talking strategy for political junkies on a slow, rainy, Friday.
The idea that Biden needs Clinton to clear the way for his presidency reminds me of the same idea regarding Obama and Clinton in 2008 (and all the indignation and condemnation leveled against Clinton for not doing it fast enough). At the heart of both positions is the premise that a tough primary fight is bad for the party. I’ve never bought into that premise. Clinton’s refusing to clear the way in 2008 made Obama a better general candidate and made Clinton a better Secretary of State. If we’re rooting for Biden or anyone else, we should wish that he would be so lucky.
It all depends. Mitt Romney emerged fatally hobbled from his primaries.
What you say about the Obama/Clinton matchup is mostly true, but it was easier because there wasn’t a Democrat in the White House.
The specific problem with a Clinton/Biden matchup is that they both served in the Obama White House and any fight between them would open up divisions within the administration and their decision-making processes. Biden would be obligated to defend the administration, while Clinton would be obligated to trash it. She wouldn’t have to do that if Biden wasn’t running, and he would have a much easier time defending himself from the attacks of an outsider than the former Sec. of State.
It would be best if both of them were not running.
Rather than my taking issue with your vision of a Clinton-Biden race or the cause of Romney’s fatal hobble, let’s look at the bigger picture. You’ve made a good argument that state demographics are going to favor the Democrats in the electoral college for the foreseeable future. Talking about clearing the field for the Democratic front-runner will consign us to accepting the most established, corporate-tethered Democratic hopeful. It’s a strategy of investment, not of competitive democracy, and will ultimately not serve us well.
I don’t think this scenario necessarily applies to Clinton, but her age makes it less likely that she would be filibustered.
If it ever came to that, Hillary wouldn’t be filibustered. Just like Hagel in the end won’t. They both share something in common. I’ll leave it to you to figure out what it is. And that’s the exact reason why both would/will be confirmed for their respective positions.
Hillary Clinton will be neither a future president nor a future justice nor a future anything.
She randomly fell down, concussed herself, and had to be hospitalized because of a blood clot in her brain. That’s a total senior citizen incident. If that was your mom, commenters of the world out there, and she had that similar injury, would you ever in a million years think “Oh yeah, she should be working 14 hour days, that’s safe.”
Clinton’s staff shouldn’t have gotten her a football helmet. They should have gotten her a LifeAlert bracelet. Sayonara, Clinton family.
Correct, I think. But I don’t think Hillary wont be President because she can’t get elected. The injury isn’t a bar to that. Rather, I think it will help convince Clinton and the people around her that she shoudn’t run. She has been serving her country for most of her adult life, with extraordinary honor and distinction. She must be very, very tired. She deserves a retirement, if she wants it.
Did Clinton randomly fall down? I read that she got dehydrated with the flu and got light-headed. My 18-year old nephew was just in the ER with an IV for fluids because he got dehydrated from the flu.
So unless the information I read was wrong, it seems a bit unfair to say she randomly fell down because she’s a senior citizen.
My friend fainted during a concert from dehydration and had a concussion as a result. Though the blood clot is an entirely different matter, and pretty serious.
And, for what it’s worth, there’s no evidence (that I’m aware of) that Clinton’s blood clot is/was age-related. Furthermore, excessive blood clotting is one of the most well-understood and widely-controlled conditions in modern medicine.
(Not making an argument for or against Clinton on the Court or in the White House. Just arguing that this incident isn’t medically disqualifying.)
She fainted. People of all ages faint for all sorts of reasons. But thanks for trying to remotely diagnose her.
and the clot was evidently result of concussion
And what is Biden’s medical history? Maybe there will be others emerge in the coming years. Someone else who can keep the Obama coalition together.
Still don’t buy your argument, BooMan. I sure as hell hope the White House research team has done health background checks on potential Supreme Court nominees. Amazingly cynical, yes, but necessary when we face an out-of-control right wing. You yourself say all the time that the Republican party is the greatest threat facing the country. You’re right. Which is why we have to stave off any potential opportunities for them to make Supreme Court appointments until they truly collapse and reform.
Thus, it’s a total dereliction of duty for the White House to do so by not appointing younger, healthier justices. If Dems miss out on the chance to appoint the next Louis Brandeis and instead nominate a less-brilliant but reasonable and longer lasting judge it’s worth it. It’s worth it because we cannot risk another Samuel Alito or Clarence Thomas. That prospect poses a grave danger to the country.
And there’s no way Republican will vote for a progressive Supreme Court judge, no matter how old, not even if it’s a replacement for Ginsburg. Blockbuster cases come up every term. Repubs trying to avoid 5-4 decisions against them at all costs too. Maybe they’ll allow it with lower court judges, and they have to some extent. But not the Supremes. The issues are too high-profile, and it would kill Repub senators in their primaries.
Were this 1993, rather than 2013, I’d be happy to see Clinton appointed to the Court. Not doing cartwheels or anything, but perfectly content.
If, today, Clinton’s the best we can do, then we’re in BIG trouble. Fortunately, there are many qualified candidates, most of them already judges, to choose from. Age is a huge consideration. Were Hillary on the Court, she’d be lucky to serve for 10 years. That’s too often to have to defend a progressive justice.
Again, not arguing for or against Clinton on the Court, but I’d just like to speak in favor on the notion that the Court might well benefit from some members who don’t have judicial experience but rather, have broad legal and political experience.
“Unless you’ve done that kind of extensive research, you can’t assume that Hillary Clinton is likely to serve a shorter time on the Court than someone 10 or 20 years younger. “
She certainly is likely to serve a shorter time. It is not certain that she will, but the percentage of the population that lives 20 years more than average is quite small. So it is unlikely. Saying you don’t know what is likely because your knowledge is limited is meaningless, because it is only because of limited knowledge that we are discussing likelihoods – the concept of “likely” implies limited knowledge and is therefore not invalidated by it. If we knew how long Clinton would live, there would be no need for odds. In fact, if you did the research you suggest, you would just be making a more informed probabilistic guess, you still wouldn’t know. And if you did such research the chances are just as good the news would be bad for Clinton as good – which means under uncertainty, the possibilities cancel out.
Point is, age alone is not sufficient to determine that a good candidate in their sixties is likely to serve less long than a good candidate in their 50’s. I’d bet that Clinton lives longer than Christie, for example.
To put this in perspective, if Clinton was put on the court in 2015 and served for 15 years, it would be 2030. By that time, most people think that Texas will be a purple, if not a blue state. Is it really that clear that we should make sure that the Justice can serve until 2035 or 2040?
Age is a factor. But it shouldn’t be the main factor.
If conservatives always nominated people in their 40s and liberals always nominated people in their 60s, then the court would overwhelmingly tilt rightward, even if liberals dominated the presidency, because conservative justices would be more capable of “waiting out” liberal presidents than the other way around.
I know it’s all just speculation for kicks, but this talk about 2016 is seriously getting tiresome for me. Can we at least wait until after Obama is inaugurated for his second term?
It bodes ill for Democrats if the list of candidates they bring to the presidential campaign starts with Hillary Clinton (who would turn 70 in her first year in office) and ends with Joe Biden (who turned 70 last November). That suggests a very shallow pool of candidates.
As for whether it’s acceptable to consider someone’s age in making a nomination to the Court, age is the reason we’re having this conversation. Ginsburg is 79 years old. She’s very likely to retire in the next 5 years.
And despite Booman’s comment, a 65 year old nominee is, in fact, very much likely to serve fewer years on the Court than a 50 year old would be, because a 50 year old has much greater odds of living to be 80 years old than a 65 year old has of living to be 95.
I don’t think she has the background for it. She doesn’t have a background in constitutional law. She was a corporate attorney. Sure she served as SoS and Flotus but that still doesn’t give her a background in constitutional law and I think that matters.