Same for me. Scalia is truly evil but Thomas is just a dumb #&%*. Thomas follows Scalia’s lead, so with Scalia out of the way maybe Thomas would just have a nervous breakdown and leave.
Roberts because he’s relatively young & a bit too tan.
The big power the Chief has is that he can, if he’s in the majority, decide who writes the decision. Who writes the decision is important for a few reasons. One of the major reasons is that it determines how wide or narrow the narrow is. Take, for instance, Richmond v Croson, which overturned Richmond’s minority setaside program. Justice O’Connor wrote the decision, and it was one of earliest big decisions.
In that case, the court said that a city can’t set a quota according to race merely because there’s been past racial discrimination in the city, but that, if (all quotes come from the summary):
So that became the controlling decision. Now, if Scalia had written the decision, saying as he did in his concurrence:
then one of two things would have happened. Either the coalition to declare the law unconstitutional would have held, which would have, under Scalia’s decision, found all minority setasides unconstitutional.
Or, it would have fallen apart, and rather than concurring in the decision, Rehnquist, O’Connor, Stevens and White would have sided with the city, the decision would have been 7-2 the other way, and the Richmond program would have survived.
So that’s one example of how deciding who writes the decision makes a big difference in the results.
That’s why I chose Thomas. I want the Court to be balanced and to have strong conservative views on the bench.
If I were looking for a way to make the Court more liberal, then I’d ditch Roberts. However, not all the cases are about politics. A lot of them involve coming up with good legal standards in very complicated cases. Not very easy to do, and I don’t mind having someone as smart as Scalia or Roberts deciding legal issues that aren’t very political.
Thomas just doesn’t impress me at all, and I think it’s too kind to describe his views as “unique.”
Imagining this as a sort of carnival game a la the OP’s username.
Alito.
I’ll be honest, I want to rebalance the Court, so one of the four most conservative Justices would have to go.
I think there is a place for textualists on the Court, and Scalia is very intelligent, and I value some of his decisions on police searches et al, as well as his experience in Administrative Law.
Thomas is very smart, and can come out with interesting opinions on some free speech matters.
Roberts appears to be a good administrator, and (though I haven’t read his decisions enough to know this) I have been told by liberal people who worked with him in the past he is a fair and open minded man.
Alito on the other hand doesn’t really bring anything, so he is the one of the four to go. I’d like to see him replaced by a true liberal legal philosopher - Ronald Dworkin if he was younger. Failing that, a “liberal” leaning jurist with antitrust experience (which is where we will miss Stevens).
Thomas. I still believe Anita Hill. Plus he nearly always votes the right wing interest, although some posters may find one exception which gives him lifetime immunity from that accusation in their opinion.
I’d choose Scalia, just to see how long it takes for Thomas to go into lock-up mode, the way Nomad did in The Changeling.
Well, not exactly that way. I wouldn’t anticipate him actually blowing out his capacitors.
While I distrust Scalia and Thomas more, I’d remove Roberts. That way the current admin gets to select a new chief justice.
I picked Scalia over Thomas because everyone sees Thomas for what he is but some people think Scalia is some kind of hero/genius.
At first I was going to say “no one” because I like having a court split between conservatives and liberals. Then I decided I’d be more comfortable if the liberals had a clearer majority, so I thought about dropping Roberts, Scalia or Thomas. I have a lot of respect for Scalia even though I usually disagree with him. I had my finger on Roberts – I think he’s a tool of Big Business – but I finally voted for Thomas because in the end I have the least amount of confidence in his decision making and I think he is the most politically biased.
Scalia. He’s very very smart, and evidently quite charismatic. Combine that with evil and crazy, and you have a very dangerous package. I have to think Thomas wouldn’t be as bad without Scalia around.
Though the arguments for Roberts make sense to me, I just can’t get past my gut reaction.
Depends. Are we picking the one that we think is the least qualified, or the one whose absence we think would best help our own personal political preference?
From what I read, I would pick as “least qualified” Justice Thomas (not trying to say he is totally unqualified, but in any group of people there is probably going to be one who is the weakest performer). Otherwise I would pick Justice Roberts because of the reasons that Captain Amazing stated in post 6.
Roberts. He is the biggest corporate whore in the history of American jurisprudence. And that is saying something.
Elena ‘Paula Blart’ Kagan
May I make a suggestion?
Please put Bork on the list.
I think, just to make a point, we need to discredit him some more . . . .
:eek:
I was trying to find a way to express just this thought.
Thank you. You are welcome. It’s why I get the big bucks.
Clarence Thomas. He treats the Supreme Court like a particularly boring friday afternoon staff meeting, and that makes me kind of mad.