Two recent vacancies have hit the Supreme Court of the United States. President Bush nominated John Roberts to be the new Chief Justice (he was approved and sworn in last week). Today, the president nominated his buddy Harriet Miers, White House counsel, to fill the other Supreme Court seat.
Roberts had less than two years experiences as a judge when he was nominated; Miers has never been a judge at all.
I don't know much about Miers' ideology and Roberts came across as a reasonable nominee, but is the Supreme Court really the best place for on-the-job training?
Update: While it's true that Miers would not be the first justice in history without any judicial experience, most had some background in legal scholarship. Miers has spent much of her recent career as an advisor to George W. Bush and was praised by the administration for cleaning up the Texas State Lottery Commission when she was its chair. She also had a very distinguished career as a trial litigator, according to the White House.
1 comment:
I don't know if she'll be a good justice or not, but some of the Court's most influential Justices came to the bench with no experience: e.g. Brandeis, Powell, Black, Frankfurter.
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