Friday, May 29, 2009

Where Are Brennan And Marshall?

Cass Sunstein writes about how the Supreme Court has moved sharply to the right since 1980. I'm sort of curious about how one would go about putting more William Brennan / Thurgood Marshall types on the court. Given the likelihood of more Senate pickups in the next cycle, I'd have to bet that 2011-2012 will be the best time to change the direction of things.

In the universe of possible Obama Supreme Court picks, I haven't heard much speculation about who might be likely to go in the Brennan/Marshall direction. Maybe I just haven't been reading the right stuff. But it's something that I'd be interested in knowing more about. I know that potential justices are often shy about expressing positions -- they don't want to be Borked in confirmation hearings -- but 2011 will be a great time to find someone who has written bold law review articles arguing for some variety of exciting lefty jurisprudence, or given speeches on the matter, or written well-argued opinions of that nature.

3 comments:

Nick Beaudrot said...

It used to be Laurence Tribe, but I think he's too old unless we institute term limits.

Pamela Karlan is very liberal, that's a good choice.

Not sure who else.

As Yglesias points out, liberals have largely abandoned the product of using the legal system to enact certain egalitarian policy measures. So there aren't many lawyers who espouse such views.

Blar said...

Lessig?

Neil Sinhababu said...

Lessig! That would be nifty.