October 19, 2005

From the Airwaves

The following comments from Jeffrey Rosen, professor of law, GWLS, and the legal-affairs editor of The New Republic, discussing Harriet Miers’ qualifications to fill Sandra Day O’Conner’s seat on the Supreme Court, on “All Things Considered,” National Public Radio, Oct. 3.

“It appears that some of the greatest justices in Supreme Court history have had no judicial experience, and some of the worst have had no judicial experience. The famous Four Horsemen who opposed Franklin Roosevelt had not previously served on the bench. By contrast, the greatest chief justices — Marshall, Hughes, and Taft — and the greatest associate justices — Black, Douglas, Warren, Brandeis, Frankfurter, Jackson — all of these people had never served on the bench.

Maybe the closest analogy — it’s one that the President’s suggested — is to people like Chief Justice Rehnquist and Byron White. Rehnquist had just served for two years as an assistant attorney general, White for one year as a deputy attorney general, and both were seen to have taken to their jobs pretty successfully and gotten up to speed quickly.

The cautionary tale, though, is Justice Fortas, who, as Lyndon Baines Johnson’s crony, never escaped the taint of his close association with the President and ultimately had to resign in scandal. So the question of whether Justice Miers would be a Fortas or a Rehnquist or a White is going to be very important in the days to come.”

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