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The David Souter Vacancy
The nomination of David Souter on 15 July 1990 by President George H. W. Bush was accompanied by high hopes from conservatives that the Court would move closer to a solid majority that would, among other things, overturn Roe v. Wade, the infamous abortion case from 1973. After all, the departing justice was the most liberal member of the Court, William Brennan, that holdover from the reviled Warren Court of the 50s and 60s. And the president's chief-of-staff, John Sununu, former governor of New Hampshire, along with Warren Rudman, one of the Granite state's US Senators, had vouched for this state Supreme Court justice as a bona fide conservative. One couldn't necessarily tell by examining the body of published work and public utterances of Souter to that point because there was none, but then that was the point. Still fresh among Republicans was the sting of the Senate's rejection of the prolific Robert Bork, who had an extensive record of public writings and comments that ultimately doomed his nomination. Souter appeared as a virtual tabula rasa, one sure to confound the liberal opponents of the Bush administration. With a Democratic majority of 12 seats over the Republicans, President Bush needed a nominee with strong judicial credentials and an appearance of compassion and even-handedness that would win over all but the most hardened liberal ideologues in the Senate. Souter did his part. Advocacy groups had tried to characterize him as having no understanding or compassion for the poor and disadvantaged, who become victims of the establishment bias of the legal system. Yet Souter, who had indicated to the committee and the media that he would have no opening statement, had in fact crafted an eloquent statement alluding to his pro bono work for poor clients and his trial judge experience that suggested a sensitivity to the human condition heretofore not ascribed to him. Two lessons [from those experiences] ... remain with me today. The first lesson, simple as it is, is that whatever court we are in, whatever we are doing, whether we are on a trial court or an appellate court, at the end of our task some human being is going to be affected. Some human life is going to be changed in some way by what we do. The second lesson that I learned in that time is that if, indeed, we are going to be trial judges, whose rulings will affect the lives of other people and who are going to change their lives by what we do, we had better use every power of our minds and our hearts and our beings to get those rulings right. The effort to portray Souter as lacking the sensitivity needed to support equal protection and other civil rights and liberties was dead in the water. His performance before the Judiciary Committee was perhaps the most effective in history. He was confirmed by a 90 to 9 vote. The cynics who saw Souter's words as rhetorical gamesmanship were in for a surprise. So too were those conservatives so pleased to say good-bye to Justice Brennan. Next›The Souter Legacy
Created on May 26, 2009 by GW |
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