Learned Hand on the Politics of Judicial Appointments

In debates over potential reforms to the judicial appointments process, there seems to be a pervasive sense that the problem of politicization is a relatively new one. In terms of the frequency with which the Senate rejects even highly qualified nominees and the extent to which overt partisanship has crept into the evaluation of candidates for lower courts, that sense seems pretty accurate. More than either of his two most recent predecessors, President Obama has had a difficult time securing Senate approval of his picks for the judiciary, as I previously discussed here.

I think it’s helpful to appreciate, however, that the basic problem of partisanship trumping merit as a determinant of judicial appointments is anything but new. Recently, I was reading Gerald Gunther’s biography of Learned Hand and came across a reminder of how the appointments process has long been an overwhelmingly political affair, even for lower-court judgeships. Gunther explains that when Jerome Frank’s death in the late 1950s left vacant a seat on the Second Circuit, advocates from opposing political orientations lobbied heavily for their favored candidates to receive the next appointment. Many Republicans pushed for the selection of Leonard Moore, the U.S. Attorney for E.D.N.Y., while Democrats favored Irving Kaufman, the federal judge who had presided over the espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Moreover, many on both sides appear to have viewed the choice between Moore and Kaufman as essentially political rather than merit-based. One of the significant arguments made in favor of Kaufman, for example, was that elevating him to the Second Circuit could function as a way for the President and Senate to signal their approval of his handling of the Rosenberg trial, of which leftist organizations had been fiercely critical.

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Trying to Get Away From Lawyers? Wisconsin May Not Be Such a Bad Place to Be

The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates what it calls the “location quotient” for individual occupations.  This statistic is computed on a state-by-state basis and reflects the percentage of a jurisdiction’s population employed in a particular job or profession.

The “location quotient” looks at the place in which the job is performed and not the jurisdiction in which the job holder is domiciled.  Hence, a lawyer who lived in Maryland, but practiced in the District of Columbia would be counted as a D.C. lawyer.

With a current “location quotient” of 0.65, Wisconsin is tied with Alabama for 40th place among the 51 states and the District of Columbia.  The only states in which lawyers are less “common” are North Dakota (0.40); South Dakota (0.43); Iowa (0.47); Indiana (0.54); Nebraska (0.58); Tennessee (0.59); North Carolina (0.59); Wyoming (0.59); and Mississippi (0.61).

The per capita number of lawyers in Wisconsin is significantly lower than that for its neighboring states of Michigan (0.77) and Minnesota (0.88), and it pales in comparison to Illinois (1.18).

Lawyers are, not surprisingly, most common in the District of Columbia which has a location quotient of 10.05.  Next on the list are New York (1.77); Delaware (1.49); Florida (1.32); Massachusetts (1.21); New Jersey (1.20); and Illinois (1.18).

As I pointed out a number of years ago in an article published in the Wisconsin Law Review entitled “The Wisconsin Lawyer in the Gilded Age,” there is nothing new about this phenomenon.  Wisconsin had fewer lawyers, per capita than most American states in the 19th century and the pattern has persisted into the 21st century.  One might be tempted to think that the diploma privilege had something to do with it, but the number of lawyers per capita is lower in Iowa than it is in Wisconsin, even though Iowa did away with the diploma privilege in 1884. (Iowa had followed Wisconsin’s lead and had adopted the diploma privilege for the state university law school in 1873.)

The full set of data compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics can be found by clicking here.

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The Original Intent of the Recall Power

Some opponents of the effort to recall Governor Scott Walker have claimed that the recall provisions of the Wisconsin State Constitution are intended solely to permit the recall of elected officials when they have engaged in criminal or grossly unethical conduct. The latest example of this claim can be seen in the column by Jonathan Rupperecht that appeared in the November 3rd edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. In it, Mr. Rupperecht says, “Recalls are designed as special interventions when elected officials become guilty of serious malfeasance in office or when they engage in illegal actions or indulge in offensively immoral behavior.”

This statement is objectively false. The recall provisions contained in the Wisconsin State Constitution were never intended to be limited in such a fashion. The original design of the right of recall is, in fact, intended to permit voters to recall elected officials for virtually any reason so long as the procedural mechanisms of the State Constitution are followed.

For present purposes, I take no position on whether a recall of Governor Walker based upon his actions since taking office is a good idea. However, Governor Walker’s supporters contend that the original “design” of the recall provisions is limited to circumstances where there is evidence of criminal conduct or a serious ethical violation. In making such claims, Walker’s supporters are attempting to cast doubt on the underlying legitimacy of the proposed recall drive, rather than arguing that the recall is unwise. Assuming that a recall petition against Governor Walker is filed on November 15, it is therefore worthwhile to ask whether the use of the recall power in this instance would be consistent with the original design of Article XIII of the Wisconsin Constitution. The answer to that question is “yes.”

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