This scenario is completely stolen from the show The West Wing, but I thought it made for an interesting quandary.

The Setting:
You are the president of the United States in your second term. The current congress is a hostile one; whatever politically ideology you subscribe to, congress is dominated by a party that leans in the opposite direction on almost every issue. The supreme court is packed with moderates and generally considered to be "balanced" between your views and those of Congress.

The Scenario:
Two associate seats suddenly open up on the Supreme Court. Your vetting process quickly finds you two qualified, moderate judges who could easily be confirmed by the Senate and would not upset the balance of the court.
However, you also find your "perfect" potential nominee. They are everything you think an ideal supreme court justice should be, but, for whatever reason, they don't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting confirmed by the Senate. You staff works out a tentative deal, such that the Senate will agree to confirm your ideal nominee, provided that you also nominate someone they pick to fill the other seat. The name they give you is a judge who, while technically qualified by his/her training and experience on the bench, is everything you don't want to see on the Supreme Court.

The Question:
Do you nominate the moderates or do you nominate your ideal candidate and the Senate's candidates?
The court will be "balanced" either way. Is it better for a balanced court to be full of moderate justices or to have an even mix of justices with strongly differing views?

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To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society. -Theodore Roosevelt

moderates...period..not even a minutes thought.

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No individual can plan his own existence in their view.

So the state planners must arrogate to themselves the right to manipulate any sector of the economic system if the good of “society” or the “general welfare” is paramount.

Ipso- if the rights of the individual get in the way, the rights of the individual must be sublimated.

The Road to Serfdom
FA Hayek (interpretation)


Mortgage Backed Security survivor

Why?

I mean, I think I agree with you, but the counter-argument would be that a diverse court allows for more opinions to be expressed from the bench and for more insightful dissenting opinions.

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To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society. -Theodore Roosevelt

because I trust moderates more in the end than whiz bang extremists...because at times moderates can sway even an extremist....another partisan from the opposite side of the spectrum has far less ability or attraction, to do so because the extreme view will not gain traction upon another like extremist imho....its like a magnet south vs south etc........the mods are nor. or sou...they can attract from either side ......

and in this country being a mod rarely gets you anywhere in politics..polarization has seen to that. The mods usually choosing the lesser of 2 evils.

__________________
No individual can plan his own existence in their view.

So the state planners must arrogate to themselves the right to manipulate any sector of the economic system if the good of “society” or the “general welfare” is paramount.

Ipso- if the rights of the individual get in the way, the rights of the individual must be sublimated.

The Road to Serfdom
FA Hayek (interpretation)


Mortgage Backed Security survivor

I would go with the moderates, IMO they would be more able and more likely to look at both side of an issue and have a more open discussion within the court before making a dicision.

It's an interesting question. I can see the initial response - moderates as the most appealing. However, I also find that sometimes the people further to either side do have something useful to add as well. I'd be concerned that there could be some groupthink if each of the sitting justices sits right down the middle. There'd be nothing to challenge the system. You'd end up with a mediocre court. Granted, there'd be no Dred Scott cases, but there'd be no Brown v. Board either.

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When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

The episode you're referring to is actually my fave WW ep. I would select the polar opposites, as "moderates" to me simply mean "taking the safe option". Where's the "outside the box" thinking? The Court would still be balanced; it's just the weight would be at either end, and not in the middle. Of course, the risk is then if one or the other retires or passes away, then the Court would be heavily favoured towards one ideology.

Still, so much about the WW was fantastic fiction. A president who actually knew about economics? ROFL ... only in Hollywood

My one concern of having a totally moderate court could be that they could rubber stamp everything any WH/Congress passed for as many years and different administrations that court was around for. Or they could go the other way and basically veto everything and say its all wrong.

Yeah, I had to modify the WW scenario a little bit. The first candidate they were considering in the show wasn't so much "moderate" as he was simply unwilling to commit to a judicial opinion outside of a specific case (which I thought was rather respectable, if not terribly interesting).

I think there's definately something to be said for keeping a diversity of voices on the court. If nothing else, reading the dissenting opinions helps us understand the variety of possible outcomes in any given case.

On a somewhat unrelated note, while watching the show I realized that picking the two "ideal" judges from either end of the spectrum would, in real life, be pure political suicide.
People are a little bit appreciative when you appoint a judge they really, really like, but they are absolutely livid and eternally unforgiving when you appoint someone they hate to the Supreme Court. The nominations would have been the end of Bartlett's influence over national politics, and even though Josh managed to cut a deal with the head of the Judiciary Committee, there's no possible way both nominees would have made it past the full Senate.

I've been slowly working my way through the WW (usually watching an episode over dinner); I'm about to start on season 6, I think.

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To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society. -Theodore Roosevelt

I would merely paraphrase a question from Justice Scalia:

A "moderate" is a judge who only ignores the law and substitutes a liberal vision of what it ought to be half the time rather than all the time.

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

No, a "moderate" is a judge who only ignores the law and substitutes a conservative vision of what it ought to be half the time rather than all the time.

__________________
When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

If that is the case, why is it always liberals who have to ignore centuries of history and practice in the understanding of the law in order to suddenly discover not only what nobody previously imagined the law meant, but clearly CONTRADICTING what centuries of americans (particularly those who actually wrote and ratified it) thought it meant?

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

Since I could not, in good conscience, nominate someone I deemed unfit for office (activist judges being one disqualifier), I'd be unwilling to put even one member on that Court who did not qualify. He/she may not share all my political views, but they certainly would have to share my views of the true function of a Supreme Court justice.

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