“When I first came to the Supreme Court, three of my colleagues had never been a federal judge,” said Scalia who joined the Court in 1986 after being nominated by President Reagan. “William Rehnquist came to the Bench from the Office of Legal Counsel. Byron White was Deputy Attorney General. And Lewis Powell who was a private lawyer in Richmond and had been president of the American Bar Association.”
“Currently, there is nobody on the Court who has not served as a judge --indeed, as a federal judge -- all nine of us,” he continued. “. . . I am happy to see that this latest nominee is not a federal judge – and not a judge at all.”
It's refreshing to see the party line scuttled in this manner. As ideologically polarized as the Court is, its members have nevertheless been able to keep such differences from interfering with a spirit of collegiality on the bench. It is well known, for example, that Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are great friends. On this score, then, our justices are miles ahead of our representatives in Congress (although the friendship of Orrin Hatch and Ted Kennedy was notable as well). Then again, with only nine justices at any one time, the Supreme Court more obviously requires collegiality just to function at all.
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