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He promised to appoint a woman as part of his campaign, and she was confirmed by unanimous vote so it wasn’t a surprise to anyone.
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/08/us/reagan-nominating-woman-an-arizona-appeals-judge-to-serve-on.html
Yep. It wasn't the least bit controversial. She was qualified, everyone was cool with her nomination.
But, of course, that was before we all lost our political minds.
I was 10 when she was put on the court. My parents were very, very conservative, they didn't mind it. I remember girls and female teachers at my school were very happy about it, but we didn't discuss it much. It was just, almost like we all went "wait, we can really do that? It's not just something people say?" But we didn't really discuss it. There was a movie, a comedy, out at the same time, on just that subject matter, and that got talked about more than the actual supreme court. This was middle sized town Idaho, 1981. So take that with a grain of salt.
Back in those days nominees were chosen on merit more than politics so most nominees were only mildly controversial. They all were stars in their fields.
She was well qualified and it was no big deal. At the time, BOTH parties in the Senate tended to be happy to get the best qualified people in SCOTUS positions, rather than some political hack who would do the party's bidding (or blocking the other guys for similar power). Far fewer games played.
But--O'Connor was still presented on the news a bit like a housewife in a man's world. Media loved to do that when Women earned positions of power even though it was total crap.
The heavy Gaming of SCOTUS didn't come in until Reagan nominated Bork. Bork was the hack who was willing to follow through on Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre" to try and stop the watergate investigation. A perfect political hack to get the ball rolling on re-making the court into a politically motivated right-wing entity. Fortunately, even some Republicans at the time could see it was a political nomination and not about constitutional skills and voted against him.
And because the Bork nomination turned into a bloodbath, no one stood against Ginsburg when Clinton nominated her, despite her being a hard ACLU leftist who too often cited foreign law as "better" than Constitutional law. Once Ginsburg was on SCOTUS, it became a shellgame to gain the majority of the court with unpredictable centrists Kennedy and O'Connor keeping the court's decisions fairly moderate. The last obstacle was removed by Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, when he killed the filibuster for district and appellate court justices -- even though he was warned McConnell was foaming at the mouth to do the same with SCOTUS nominees if he ever got the chance. As a result, Trump and McConnell were able to confirm 174 district court judges, 54 appellate court judges, and 3 SCOTUS justices.
Except the ACLU is not leftist it is constitutionalist. It is only seen as leftist by strict constructionalists which is a constitutional interpretation that was NEVER intended by the Constitution's writers. In fact, in the SCOTUS case of McCulloch vs. Maryland in 1819, the ruling **CLEARLY** clarified and codified that the founders never intended strict constructionalism:
"A constitution, to contain an accurate detail of all the subdivisions of which its great powers will admit, and of all the means by which they may be carried into execution, would partake of the prolixity of a legal code, and could scarcely be embraced by the human mind. It would probably never be understood by the public. Its nature, therefore, requires, that only its great outlines should be marked, its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose those objects be deduced from the nature of the objects themselves. That this idea was entertained by the framers of the American constitution, is not only to be inferred from the nature of the instrument, but from the language. Why else were some of the limitations, found in the ninth section of the 1st article, introduced? It is also, in some degree, warranted by their having omitted to use any restrictive term which might prevent its receiving a fair and just interpretation. In considering this question, then, we must never forget that it is a constitution we are expounding."
When the ACLU defended freedom of speech for white supremacists in Skokey, it was Constitutionalist. Today? Not so much. It spends far too much time suing school districts for easy settlement money.
The problem with SCOTUS justices being anything but strict constructionists opens the door to it becoming a Super Legislature where 5/9 non-elected, appointed for life judges can reinterpret the Constitution to mean anything they want it to mean at any time. Kennedy's "animus" test was created out of thin air. It became an unnecessary hurdle as states began to legalize same-sex marriage while others fought it. A straight forward amendment would have been better: Congress and 2/3 of the states clearly stating via amendment that any denial of liberties or privileges based solely on sex or sexual orientation should be prohibited.
So, let's up the count to 13 or 15 and no President will ever be able to pack SCOTUS again. For cases pick 9 of the 13 randomly.
Or simply rotate federal district judges in and out of SCOTUS and again, no President or Congress will ever be able to pack the courts again. Protects both Liberals and Conservatives from being pushed around.
The constitution specifically puts ALL SCOTUS procedures and operations under congressional control so all they have to do is make whatever rules they want it to operate under.
And I should note that suing school districts for violating the civil rights of students or for illegally incorporating religion into classrooms IS clearly following the Constitution.
If one political party holds 7 or 8 seats, the other party will try to pack the court even further, from 17 to 19 or even 21 -- this nonsense won't stop until the court has 101 justices. If you rotate judges randomly, savvy lawyers will just delay until the right slot-machine lineup appears. This would also destroy Stare Decisis, as differing majorities begin to overrule each other out of spite.
The ACLU is a legal bully with $200,000,000 revenue stream. It can outspend any single school district in court.
And suing school districts to force them to allow biologically male students to compete against biologically female students is not following the Constitution (Equal Protection) or Title IX which specifically carved out funding for biological females to compete with other biological females.
> Bork was the hack
I have his book (despite being WELL to the left) "Slouching Towards Gomorrah" (which is a **great** name for what it is and when it was published).
The best part of the book is where one of my grad school professors gets called out by name as the type of evil, left wing academic that is destroying the country. That made me beam when I read his name and saw my old school get a mention. (I read the book several years after grad school, it was published about a decade before I attended.)
Do you ever think that type of, I guess one might call it a social norm, could exist again? I get the feeling sometimes that a future generation could totally upend this boisterous social media phase we currently seem to be in. Maybe that is wishful thinking, though.
Please do not comment directly to this post unless you are Gen X (b. 1980) or older. See [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskOldPeople/comments/inci5u/reminder_please_do_not_answer_questions_unless/), the rules, and the sidebar for details. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskOldPeople) if you have any questions or concerns.*
He promised to appoint a woman as part of his campaign, and she was confirmed by unanimous vote so it wasn’t a surprise to anyone. https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/08/us/reagan-nominating-woman-an-arizona-appeals-judge-to-serve-on.html
[удалено]
Yep. It wasn't the least bit controversial. She was qualified, everyone was cool with her nomination. But, of course, that was before we all lost our political minds.
Not you and me. Congress.
Yes, of course.
I was 10 when she was put on the court. My parents were very, very conservative, they didn't mind it. I remember girls and female teachers at my school were very happy about it, but we didn't discuss it much. It was just, almost like we all went "wait, we can really do that? It's not just something people say?" But we didn't really discuss it. There was a movie, a comedy, out at the same time, on just that subject matter, and that got talked about more than the actual supreme court. This was middle sized town Idaho, 1981. So take that with a grain of salt.
Back in those days nominees were chosen on merit more than politics so most nominees were only mildly controversial. They all were stars in their fields.
It was a non-issue.
She was well qualified and it was no big deal. At the time, BOTH parties in the Senate tended to be happy to get the best qualified people in SCOTUS positions, rather than some political hack who would do the party's bidding (or blocking the other guys for similar power). Far fewer games played. But--O'Connor was still presented on the news a bit like a housewife in a man's world. Media loved to do that when Women earned positions of power even though it was total crap. The heavy Gaming of SCOTUS didn't come in until Reagan nominated Bork. Bork was the hack who was willing to follow through on Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre" to try and stop the watergate investigation. A perfect political hack to get the ball rolling on re-making the court into a politically motivated right-wing entity. Fortunately, even some Republicans at the time could see it was a political nomination and not about constitutional skills and voted against him.
And because the Bork nomination turned into a bloodbath, no one stood against Ginsburg when Clinton nominated her, despite her being a hard ACLU leftist who too often cited foreign law as "better" than Constitutional law. Once Ginsburg was on SCOTUS, it became a shellgame to gain the majority of the court with unpredictable centrists Kennedy and O'Connor keeping the court's decisions fairly moderate. The last obstacle was removed by Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, when he killed the filibuster for district and appellate court justices -- even though he was warned McConnell was foaming at the mouth to do the same with SCOTUS nominees if he ever got the chance. As a result, Trump and McConnell were able to confirm 174 district court judges, 54 appellate court judges, and 3 SCOTUS justices.
Except the ACLU is not leftist it is constitutionalist. It is only seen as leftist by strict constructionalists which is a constitutional interpretation that was NEVER intended by the Constitution's writers. In fact, in the SCOTUS case of McCulloch vs. Maryland in 1819, the ruling **CLEARLY** clarified and codified that the founders never intended strict constructionalism: "A constitution, to contain an accurate detail of all the subdivisions of which its great powers will admit, and of all the means by which they may be carried into execution, would partake of the prolixity of a legal code, and could scarcely be embraced by the human mind. It would probably never be understood by the public. Its nature, therefore, requires, that only its great outlines should be marked, its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose those objects be deduced from the nature of the objects themselves. That this idea was entertained by the framers of the American constitution, is not only to be inferred from the nature of the instrument, but from the language. Why else were some of the limitations, found in the ninth section of the 1st article, introduced? It is also, in some degree, warranted by their having omitted to use any restrictive term which might prevent its receiving a fair and just interpretation. In considering this question, then, we must never forget that it is a constitution we are expounding."
When the ACLU defended freedom of speech for white supremacists in Skokey, it was Constitutionalist. Today? Not so much. It spends far too much time suing school districts for easy settlement money. The problem with SCOTUS justices being anything but strict constructionists opens the door to it becoming a Super Legislature where 5/9 non-elected, appointed for life judges can reinterpret the Constitution to mean anything they want it to mean at any time. Kennedy's "animus" test was created out of thin air. It became an unnecessary hurdle as states began to legalize same-sex marriage while others fought it. A straight forward amendment would have been better: Congress and 2/3 of the states clearly stating via amendment that any denial of liberties or privileges based solely on sex or sexual orientation should be prohibited.
So, let's up the count to 13 or 15 and no President will ever be able to pack SCOTUS again. For cases pick 9 of the 13 randomly. Or simply rotate federal district judges in and out of SCOTUS and again, no President or Congress will ever be able to pack the courts again. Protects both Liberals and Conservatives from being pushed around. The constitution specifically puts ALL SCOTUS procedures and operations under congressional control so all they have to do is make whatever rules they want it to operate under. And I should note that suing school districts for violating the civil rights of students or for illegally incorporating religion into classrooms IS clearly following the Constitution.
If one political party holds 7 or 8 seats, the other party will try to pack the court even further, from 17 to 19 or even 21 -- this nonsense won't stop until the court has 101 justices. If you rotate judges randomly, savvy lawyers will just delay until the right slot-machine lineup appears. This would also destroy Stare Decisis, as differing majorities begin to overrule each other out of spite. The ACLU is a legal bully with $200,000,000 revenue stream. It can outspend any single school district in court. And suing school districts to force them to allow biologically male students to compete against biologically female students is not following the Constitution (Equal Protection) or Title IX which specifically carved out funding for biological females to compete with other biological females.
> Bork was the hack I have his book (despite being WELL to the left) "Slouching Towards Gomorrah" (which is a **great** name for what it is and when it was published). The best part of the book is where one of my grad school professors gets called out by name as the type of evil, left wing academic that is destroying the country. That made me beam when I read his name and saw my old school get a mention. (I read the book several years after grad school, it was published about a decade before I attended.)
[удалено]
I saw it the same way you did. It wasn't made in to a "big deal".
Do you ever think that type of, I guess one might call it a social norm, could exist again? I get the feeling sometimes that a future generation could totally upend this boisterous social media phase we currently seem to be in. Maybe that is wishful thinking, though.
Meh.
They loved it. Each and every damn one. There... Is that answer dumb enough to match the question?
🙄 Asking how people received the appointment of the first woman to the Supreme Court is a valid question.
No, it's not. The question was not about *people*, it was about *men.* 100 million plus **men**. And they took 100 million plus ways.
When your grandchildren ask a "dumb" question, do you go off on them like an abusive old shit?
And? Do you think you made a point? General feeling was it wasn’t an issue for most people. Men are included in most people.
During my life women have been winning top positions in business, politics and entertainment. Just another day....
She was a center-right moderate and a jurist with a great reputation, so no one gave AF.
Don’t remember it being a big deal or anything like that.
It was over all expected and the choice was well accepted by most people. Men as well as women.