I remember him being derided as "the stealth nominee" because he didn't have much of a paper trail that could be used against him in confirmation hearings. (This was of course before confirmation hearings became rubber-stamps when the President's party held the Senate.)
Former Supreme Court justice David Souter has died
11–20 of 48 posts
Re: Former Supreme Court justice David Souter has died
#12I met him at the Court once during law school.
He came across as the most even-keeled person in the world.
I asked him how he thought he had changed, if at all, throughout his years on the Court. He said, "We never see ourselves as others see us." I'll never forget it.
He'll be missed; sorry to hear that his papers won't be released for 50 years.
Re: Former Supreme Court justice David Souter has died
#13He lived in New Hampshire and after the Kelo decision which allowed eminent domain on a property, which he was a deciding vote on, some local NH politicians tried to use Kelo to seize his property, which caused a kerfluffle in the Libertarian side; if it happened today I would guess it would go farther, given wider divisions in politics.
I remember that decision and am still indignant about it. Why should the government give private land to a different private party? If the government is going to take it for public use, I can see the reasoning, but using eminent domain to transfer to private owners is fraught.
Re: Former Supreme Court justice David Souter has died
#14https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWcVtWennr0 Here he is discussing the dangers of the erosion of civic knowledge.
How accurate is his claim that Augustus became emperor through (my paraphrasing) democratic means and promises to fix real problems for Romans?
Re: Former Supreme Court justice David Souter has died
#15He lived in New Hampshire and after the Kelo decision which allowed eminent domain on a property, which he was a deciding vote on, some local NH politicians tried to use Kelo to seize his property, which caused a kerfluffle in the Libertarian side; if it happened today I would guess it would go farther, given wider divisions in politics.
I remember that decision and am still indignant about it. Why should the government give private land to a different private party? If the government is going to take it for public use, I can see the reasoning, but using eminent domain to transfer to private owners is fraught.
The worst part is the development didn't happen.
Re: Former Supreme Court justice David Souter has died
#16Radiolab made a podcast on him, detailing about how he rose above partisanship. We need more people like him in the courts.
Episode link: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolabmoreperfect/epi...
Re: Former Supreme Court justice David Souter has died
#17He lived in New Hampshire and after the Kelo decision which allowed eminent domain on a property, which he was a deciding vote on, some local NH politicians tried to use Kelo to seize his property, which caused a kerfluffle in the Libertarian side; if it happened today I would guess it would go farther, given wider divisions in politics.
I remember that decision and am still indignant about it. Why should the government give private land to a different private party? If the government is going to take it for public use, I can see the reasoning, but using eminent domain to transfer to private owners is fraught.
It was a terrible decision.
Not that those are rare.
[EDIT] To make this a little more substantive, on an issue where they extremely plausibly could have decided otherwise, they elected to go for the option that is plainly, guaranteed to be less-just. There is no universe in which anyone with a brain could believe the overwhelming result of this decision wouldn't be to benefit people with power and money at the expense of those without power and money.
Re: Former Supreme Court justice David Souter has died
#18Radiolab made a podcast on him, detailing about how he rose above partisanship. We need more people like him in the courts. Episode link: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolabmoreperfect/epi...
Partisanship is effectively treason when party loyalty trumps loyalty to the country.
We were warned from the beginning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington%27s_Farewell...
Re: Former Supreme Court justice David Souter has died
#19https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWcVtWennr0 Here he is discussing the dangers of the erosion of civic knowledge.
> What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed, people will not know who is responsible. And when the problems get bad enough—as they might do for example with another serious terrorist attack, as they might do with another financial meltdown—some one person will come forward and say 'give me total power, and I will solve this problem'. That is how the Roman republic fell: Augustus became emperor not because he arrested the Roman Senate, he became emperor because he promised that he would solve problems that were not being solved.
> If we know who is responsible, I have enough faith in the American people to demand performance from those responsible. If we don't know, we will stay away from the polls, we will not demand it, and the day will come when somebody will come forward, and we and the government will, in effect, say 'take the ball and run with it. Do what you have to do.' That is the way democracy dies, and if something is not done to improve the level of civic knowledge, that is what you should worry about at night.
Re: Former Supreme Court justice David Souter has died
#20I remember him being derided as "the stealth nominee" because he didn't have much of a paper trail that could be used against him in confirmation hearings. (This was of course before confirmation hearings became rubber-stamps when the President's party held the Senate.)
>> This was of course before confirmation hearings became rubber-stamps when the President's party held the Senate
Souter was nominated in 1990. The President's party held the Senate in 2005 when Harriet Miers nomination didn't even make it out of committee.
If you're talking about an actual vote for a nominee, looks like there were only four rejected candidates in the entire 1900's and 2000's so far (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsuccessful_nominations_to_th...), and only one of those was when the President's party held the Senate. That was in 1930. Things don't seem to have changed much.