McCain and the Supreme Court

Erwin Chemerinsky, a law professor and Constitutional law scholar, just wrote a piece for Salon about the risk to the Supreme Court if McCain is elected.

Anyone you know who is scared of Scalia but not yet sure about Obama should wake up and read this article. To me, this is probably the biggest reason to vote for Obama.

Here are some snippets from the article:

...there is much at stake for the future of the Supreme Court and American constitutional law, and this is one of the areas of clearest difference between John McCain and Barack Obama. McCain has said that he wants to appoint conservative justices like Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito. Obama voted against confirmation of both of those individuals and has said that he would pick liberal justices like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

Even if Obama wins the election, it is far less likely that the Supreme Court will become more liberal in the near term. This is because any vacancies on the court between Jan. 20, 2009, and Jan. 20, 2013, are likely to come among the three most liberal justices.

It is not only the future of the Supreme Court that is at stake with the November election. The president also selects judges for the many federal district courts and the 13 federal circuit courts of appeal, the last stop before the Supreme Court. These judges, too, have life tenure and often remain on the bench for decades. Most of the 13 circuit courts of appeal currently have a Republican majority, but on most it is by a small margin.

A McCain presidency would likely ensure substantial Republican majorities in every circuit, whereas an Obama presidency would offer the chance to shift some circuits back to control by judges selected by a Democratic president. This balance, too, is important; because the Supreme Court agrees to preside over only a fraction of cases moving through the federal court system each year, the rulings of the circuits often play an important role in shaping federal law.