"They Like Him, They Really Like Him!"

Okay, fine, Article III Groupie will give you some "news" about the federal judiciary (which is, after all, one of the things promised by this blog, along with "gossip" and "colorful commentary"). A3G doesn't like the pressure to keep up with the news cycle and stay abreast of the latest developments, but she realizes it's part of her job as a blogger.

Yesterday the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Supreme Court nomination of Judge John G. Roberts, Jr., and referred it to the full Senate for a vote next week. With the Committee voting 13-5 in support of the nomination, "confirmation is now virtually assured." [Oops, sorry about that! An earlier version of this post erroneously reported the vote as 15-3. Math is hard! Thanks to everyone who wrote in with the correction.]

So expect John Roberts to be occupying the Chief Justice's chair on October 3, when the Court begins hearing cases for October Term 2005. At the first oral argument session, Chief Justice Roberts will probably spend more time seated in the chair than his predecessor and former boss, the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who frequently stood up in the middle of oral argument to stretch his back. It remains to be seen whether Chief Justice Roberts will be as much of a stickler for time as Chief Justice Rehnquist, who was known to "cut [an] attorney off in midsyllable" upon seeing the red light indicating that the attorney's time was up.

In light of Judge Roberts's superb performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Committee's vote in support of his nomination wasn't exactly a surprise. There really isn't much to say about this "news"; indeed, perhaps this is one of the more noteworthy aspects of the vote. Of course, A3G was glad to see that three Democrats on the Committee -- Senators Leahy, Feingold, and Kohl -- "d[id] the right thing" and voted for Judge Roberts.*

Looking ahead to next week's vote by the full Senate, it appears that Judge Roberts will secure at least 63 votes. Although it's too early to tell how large his final margin of victory will be, it won't be enormous. This is unfortunate. The breathtakingly brilliant Judge Roberts deserves to be confirmed unanimously, or at least in a landslide.  He is equally if not more qualified, and certainly less susceptible to being tagged as an ideologue, than future Supreme Court colleagues of his who were confirmed by overwhelming margins, such as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 96-3; Justice Stephen G. Breyer, 87-9; and Justice Antonin Scalia, 98-0.**

But a confirmation is a confirmation, regardless of the margin of victory. A seat on the Supreme Court feels plush, no matter how long and hard you had to fight to occupy it. Now that he's firmly ensconced in the luxury of One First Street, which is luxurious a priori,*** do you think that Justice Clarence Thomas cares that he was confirmed by only a 52-48 margin?

Of course not! There's a reason why we call it the Supreme Court...

* Senatrix Hillary Clinton has come out against the Roberts nomination. (Gavel bang: Jewdicious.) A3G is disappointed to see Senatrix Clinton aligning herself with the more left-wing elements of her party, instead of joining the reasonable Democrats (at least 8 outside the Judiciary Committee) who have announced their support for the nomination. But Hillary's decision to tack left on the Roberts nomination, after having tacked right for a bit on other issues, was probably motivated by a desire to please the liberal base of the Democratic Party that will be voting in the presidential primaries. Senatrix Clinton's recent ideological tightrope-walking should dispel any doubt that she is planning a presidential run in 2008.

** Justices Ginsburg and Scalia had amazing pre-robescent legal careers, to be sure. But please note that of Justices Scalia, Ginsburg, and Breyer, only Justice Breyer (OT 1964/Goldberg) is among the Elect. Thus, a strong case can be made that of these three justices, only Justice Breyer was as qualified at the time of his confirmation to serve on the Court as Judge Roberts is today. (The other member of the Elect currently on the Court, Justice John Paul Stevens (OT 1947/Rutledge), was confirmed 98-0, back in 1975.)

*** A3G recognizes that the 70-year-old Supreme Court building is showing its age, which is why it's undergoing a $122 million renovation. As noted in this article by Joan Biskupic, for filing under the "glad to hear that" category:

The nine justices, too, are being uprooted from their individual three-room chambers. They will move to other space within the marble confines, however, rather than be relegated to trailers.

The very idea of Supreme Court justices working out of trailers verges on the unspeakable. A3G can't believe that Ms. Biskupic's computer allowed her to type those two sentences!

If the justices were forced to work out of trailers, though, maybe not all of them would be unhappy. It is well-known that Justice Thomas loves driving around in his RV. (Gavel bang: Is That Legal?)

Comments

[Article III Groupie]

Some comments on the comments:

1. Thanks for the correction; I've fixed it.

2. I actually don't have any more info about OT 2006 hiring other than what I've previously published concerning the hires of Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Thomas (John Adams, and the other Sentelle-tubby mentioned in the reader comments). I'll pass along such info as I get it.

3. Point well-taken re: Justice Ginsburg; several readers also made the same point to me in emails. After all, she did graduate at the top of her class at Columbia Law School, with a record-setting GPA.

4. I hadn't thought about how the Justices working out of trailers would make them more like Hollywood deities -- quite an interesting angle!

[WB]

The thought of the Justices working out of trailers shouldn't be unspeakable. It would make them much like many of the Hollywood movie stars who must constantly work out of trailers. Perhaps riding circuit is more like shooting a movie "on-location" that it seems.

[Will]

re: RBG and clerking. How many female clerks had been inducted into The Elect by the time RBG graduated from school? Having graduated at the tippity top of her Columbia Law School class, methinks she would have been a no-brainer choice had she been endowed with an, er, Y chromosome.

Appropos of nothing: how about issuing a discovery request on the status of Supreme Court clerk hiring? Or, if you already have new information, how about posting it piecemeal (as you did w/the John Adams hire), instead of waiting until a justice has hired all of his/her clerks? Inquiring minds want to know who has been hired--and just as important--how many spots are left!

Correction: the vote was 13-5, not 15-3.