Supreme Court Shuffle

Almost a year ago I wrote here in cautious support of the nomination of Sonya Sotomayor to the Supremes. I raised three objections. First, that the court has too many Catholics (six including Sotomayor); second that it has too many Ivy League lawyers (retiring Judge Stevens is the only justice who is not an Ivy League law graduate), and third that Sotomayor is too conservative. Now that the President must replace the only liberal on the court (ironically, a Ford appointee), I want to reiterate that argument. (See Soto Voce, Sotomayor, May 27, 2009). Six Catholics is entirely too many, and even the main stream press is starting to notice. The New York Times has appointed out that with Stevens gone there are no WASPs left on the court. Six Catholics and two Jews. My preference would be that the Presdient appoint an atheist, but I am only asking for no more Catholics. Since when do you have to be a graduate of Harvard or Yale to be a judge? Six is too many, seven is outrageous. The entire court is skewed to the east coast establishment. A fresh vision from an outsider, someone from the Midwest would be a good thing. There are plenty of good schools there. You can't tell me they can't find good, solid, liberal lawyers in the Midwest who would be qualified to serve. I don't want to shift the court to the middle, but I do want to shift it to the middle of the country. I said before that Sotomayor is too conservative and while she has done nothing yet to totally embarrass Obama with the Progressive wing of the party, she has yet to be called on to rule on abortion or any similarly difficult subject. Now we But we do need a dedicated liberal on the bench, someone to replace Stevens who has been the lynchpin of the Court's left wing for the last 20 years. There are, by the way, two non Harvards on what the popular press believes to be the President's short list. Janet Napolitano, Secretary for Homeland Security, University of Virginia, and Diane Pamela Wood, Seventh Circuit Judge, University of Texas. Napolitano is a Methodist. I have not been able to identify a religion for Woods, who is unlikely to get the nomination because of her well established record of favoring a woman's right to choose. Probably not Catholic.