Why We Aren’t Taking a Position on Supreme Court Nominees
Like many, I was deeply saddened by the passing last week of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. While I didn’t know her, she and my mother—a female lawyer of the same generation—did some work together in the 1970s. She was bright, principled and thoughtful. Overall, she was probably the best writer on the court’s liberal wing. Her close friendship with former Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, furthermore, is a model for comity between ideological opponents in a politically riven era.
Even as people of all persuasions mourn her passing, the issue of her replacement becomes more central to American policymaking. And R Street, as an institution, has lots of ideas about the judiciary. We’re against court packing and see proposed lengthy-but-limited Supreme Court terms as a non-solution. We see an independent judiciary as a vital part of our system and want it to be honest, transparent, independent (although not always disconnected from public views) and smart. You can see a complete list of our resources and where we stand on major institutional reform questions, here.
That said, the one thing you won’t see—now or in the future—is an institutional opinion on President Trump’s prospective nominees or a position as to whether or not they should get a vote in the Senate at any particular time. R Street, as an organization, has never weighed in on any nomination for any position and we’re not going to change that policy now. While taking a stand on a nomination may technically be within the law and our tax status, the way that people of both major parties have tied the court nomination to the elections makes it inappropriate for us to take an organizational position.
That said, the staff of R Street are citizens and are certainly entitled to express their own views. And I suspect we’ll have staff take a variety of positions on the nomination and even more offer commentary on the mechanics and dynamics of the nomination process. But anyone who weighs in is doing so for themselves, rather than on behalf of the organization.
Image credit: Anton Iakovenko
