Is Obama Ready to Name a Justice?

It sounds like it! In the Washington Post today President Obama expands on his criteria for a justice.

President Obama said he is seeking a Supreme Court nominee who understands the "practical day-to-day" implications of rulings, as he pushed back in an interview airing yesterday against criticism of his emphasis on judicial "empathy."

It is "important this is somebody who has common sense and somebody who has a sense of how American society works and how the American people live," he told C-SPAN, in his most extensive public comments yet on his deliberations since Justice David H. Souter announced his retirement.

"What I want is not just ivory tower learning," he added. "I want somebody who has the intellectual firepower but also a little bit of a common touch and has a practical sense of how the world works."

Republicans have zeroed in on Obama's comments during the presidential campaign that he would "want people on the bench who have enough empathy, enough feeling, for what ordinary people are going through." They have argued that this is code language for judges who would apply an "activist" agenda not necessarily bound by constitutional constraints.

Liberals really must not let Republicans get away with this "activist justice" bullshit. Their "activist president and vice president" nearly ruined this country. It could take a generation to fix the mess they left behind.

I like that President Obama cited Lilly Ledbetter's story as an example of the kind of judicial temperament he's looking for. Ledbetter was discriminated against at Goodyear Tire. For decades she was paid less than her male counterparts. Any justice with a brain would know that employees rarely know what their co-workers earn. In Ledbetter's case, by the time she did find out it was past the legal deadline to file a discrimination claim.

She lost her Supreme Court case, but Congress has now fixed the problem so other women won't face this same obstacle.

Obama stuck to the same language in the interview while seeking to expand its meaning: He wants a judge who can not only understand the lives of ordinary people, he said, but also grasp the practical consequences of rulings on businesses.

"I said earlier that I thought empathy was an important quality, and I continue to believe that. You have to have not only the intellect to be able to effectively apply the law to cases before you, but you have to be able to stand in somebody's else shoes and see through their eyes and get a sense of how the law might work or not work in practical day-to-day living," he said.

As an example, he cited the Lilly Ledbetter case, in which the court ruled in 2007 that a woman who had suffered pay discrimination, but discovered it after the window for filing suit had passed, could not sue her employer. "I think anybody who has ever worked in a job like that understands that they might not know that they were being discriminated against," Obama said. "It doesn't make sense for their rights to be foreclosed. That's the kind of case where I want a judge not only to be applying the law in front of them but also to understand that as a practical matter."

The nominee will likely be named next week. Let's hope the president makes a good selection, and the Democrats have the spine to stand up to Republicans.