Political Processes & Rhetoric – Page 88 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

The Umpire, the Wise Latina, and the Cabinetmaker

Post author:Edward A. Fallone
Post published:July 24, 2009
Post category:Federal Sentencing Judges & Judicial Process Political Processes & Rhetoric U.S. Supreme Court

The confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor are over, and the reviews have been overwhelmingly negative. The public tuned in expecting a discussion of the nominee’s qualifications and a debate on the role of the Supreme Court in our constitutional system. What they got, instead, was a battle of metaphors.

Republican Senators on the Judiciary Committee compared the ideal Supreme Court justice to a baseball umpire. An umpire confines himself to calling balls and strikes without allowing his preference for one team or the other to influence the performance of his duties. The umpire metaphor is designed to support the view that judges apply the law objectively and even handedly.

While the umpire metaphor expresses a commendable aspiration, one can’t help but wonder whether this is an attainable goal.

The Sotomayor Hearings — What We Can Agree On?

Post author:Richard M. Esenberg
Post published:July 20, 2009
Post category:Judges & Judicial Process Political Processes & Rhetoric U.S. Supreme Court

Here is something that we can all agree on. Maybe. Over at PrawfsBlawg, Howard Wasserman of Florida International says that the Sotomayor hearings have been “inane and meaningless.” This has been a widely shared reaction among liberal legal academics and lawyers. They are disappointed in (even if they are willing to excuse) her retreat into a caricature of judicial restraint. They are put off (even if they are willing to rationalize) the fog of platitudes and non sequiturs with which she has responded to questions.

Here’s an example. Our own Senator Feingold asked her what the test is for incorporating provisions of the Bill of Rights into the Fourteenth Amendment:

Politics as Total War

Post author:Richard M. Esenberg
Post published:July 14, 2009
Post category:Political Processes & Rhetoric

A few years ago, a Department of Defense official called for a boycott of tony law firms that represented — on a pro bono basis — Guantanamo detainees. He was roundly — and I think justly — criticized.

But his view of politics as total war — something to be imported into nonpolitical walks of life — seems to be gaining currency. Earlier this year, One Wisconsin Now organized a phone campaign in which it urged its supporters to call and complain to a large local law firm about the pro bono work of one of its young associates. This young woman was apparently donating her time in support of Wisconsin’s marriage amendment. The objective was to use a law firm’s natural desire to avoid controversy and her economic vulnerability to shut her up and deny a party the legal representation of its choice.

Paul Soglin’s WMC Watch and full-court press for disclosure of donors to political conduits is concerned, at least in part, with a desire to place pressure on businesses that don’t behave politically in much the way that Epic Systems forced a contractor off WMC’s board.

Is there something wrong with this? Shouldn’t we all vote with our pocketbooks? Isn’t the personal political?