An Ideal Bench? What’s “Merit” Got To Do With It?
August 30, 2012
Scrolling through a recent post on Gavel Grab, I ran across this little tidbit from our friends at Justice at Stake:
“An ideal bench is representative of the larger community, including women, persons of color, members of the LGBT community, persons with disabilities and other underrepresented groups.”
I would have thought the “ideal bench” is comprised of the most talented, most qualified jurists who recognize their public duty is to interpret the law, not impose their political preferences from the bench. Does being a member of the LGBT community or any other underrepresented group really have anything to do with a judicial candidate’s intrinsic merit or ability to adjudicate fairly and impartially? Can we finally drop the sanctimonious pretense that “merit” selection is about getting the best qualified people on the courts and admit that it’s just another way for liberals to try to shape the ideological direction of the courts?
