Also, Water is Wet
A new study supports our fears: Supreme Court nominees present themselves one way at confirmation hearings but act differently on the court. That makes it difficult for senators to cast informed votes or for the public to play a meaningful role in the process.
The study — with the unwieldy title “An Empirical Analysis of the Confirmation Hearings of the Justices of the Rehnquist Natural Court” —published in Constitutional Commentary, looked at how nine long-serving justices answered Senate questions, and how they then voted on the court. While it does not say that any nominee was intentionally misleading, it still found a wide gap.
Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, for example, told the Senate that they had strong respect for Supreme Court precedents. On the court they were the justices most likely to vote to overturn those precedents. Justice David Souter deferred more to precedent than his Senate testimony suggested he would.
And water is wet. Look, anyone who says they didn't know that Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts (in my memory) were lying about their politics and their respect for precedent (when they weren't obfuscating and stalling) is either lying themselves or should have their homes wallpapered in bubblewrap and be ordered into conservatorship for their own protection.
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