When judges get appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, they usually follow a set of certain practices.
One of them is to keep their partisan political views to themselves.
Sure, their judicial philosophy often reveals their political leanings, but that’s for others to assume.
With that said, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has crossed a line separating the judicial branch from the rest of the federal government structure.
She said the following: “I can’t imagine what this place would be — I can’t imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president,” Ginsburg told the New York Times’s Adam Liptak. “For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be — I don’t even want to contemplate that.”
Ginsburg’s reference is to presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump.
Very bad call, Mme. Justice.
It’s OK for justices to think certain things about politicians. It’s quite inappropriate for them to say it out loud. Judicial decorum dictates that they stay above the political fray. These individuals aren’t politicians. Presidents nominate them and the Senate confirms them on the basis of how they determine the constitutionality of federal law.
Justice Ginsburg, selected for the high court in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, would seem to have an axe to grind given her statements criticizing Trump’s candidacy. Trump, after all, is running against the wife of the man who selected her to the Supreme Court.
Don’t misunderstand me on this point: I have trouble contemplating a Trump presidency, too.
I, though, am not a member of the highest court in the nation. I can say these things out loud. Justice Ginsburg needed to keep her mouth shut.
Axe to grind? That is an awfully big assumption. Are you sure? That characterization seems to imply a hidden agenda or vendetta against Trump. Maybe she was just calling it like she saw it–because it is frighteningly true. “Crossing a line” sounds to me as if she has done something so reprehensible as to deserve future mistrust. She did not rail against Trump. She simply stated a simple fact. The idea of him being elected is unimaginable and has scary implications for the Court, because he is a demagogue. Want to see a Trump S.Ct. nominee? Think our Lt. Gov. with a law degree (read: Ted Cruz). Thank goodness she is willing to speak up and say it. I wish more would. [Slightly] Unseemly maybe, but in terms of the many other public statements made by many other Justices in the course of history? Thank goodness she is appointed for life and does not have to worry about whether or not I think what she says is unseemly, or you think it is crossing a line. She had the courage to speak the truth. More people should.
Thanks for your comment, Max. I’m puzzled, though, why there are those who think it’s OK for a Supreme Court justice — who’s supposed to be above the rough and tumble of partisan politics — to weigh in with such a strong statement that is so overtly critical of a major party presidential nominee. Doesn’t that violate an unwritten rule that justices all agree to follow when they put on the black robe? I don’t disagree with what she said, but I just wish she would have left it for others to say. Thanks again.