Yup, the judges. Liberal elites are outraged that "politics" means that judges - while still to the left of the people - are more representative than the legal parasites who use their "law" to prey upon us. Of course the benighted NYT article is entitled "Why Judges tilt to the right". Plus ça change...sigh.... Hat tip Instapundit.
Lawyers on average are much more liberal than the general population, a new study has found. But judges are more conservative than the average lawyer, to say nothing of the graduates of top law schools.
What accounts for the gap? The answer, the study says, is that judicial selection processes are affected by politics.
Judges are, of course, almost without exception lawyers. If judges reflected the pool from which they were selected based on politically neutral grounds like technical skill and temperament, the bench might be expected to tilt left.
But something else is going on. . . .
Eric A. Posner, a law professor at the University of Chicago, said the paper might have drawn the wrong conclusion from the right data. “The authors argue that a court is politicized if the judges deviate from the ideology of the underlying ideological distribution of attorneys,” he said. “Maybe.”
But an equally powerful case could be made, he said, for viewing courts as politicized if they failed to reflect the ideology of people generally. “On this view,” Professor Posner continued, “we should congratulate rather than condemn Republicans for bringing much-needed ideological balance to the judiciary.”
Judges are, of course, almost without exception lawyers. If judges reflected the pool from which they were selected based on politically neutral grounds like technical skill and temperament, the bench might be expected to tilt left.
But something else is going on. . . .
Eric A. Posner, a law professor at the University of Chicago, said the paper might have drawn the wrong conclusion from the right data. “The authors argue that a court is politicized if the judges deviate from the ideology of the underlying ideological distribution of attorneys,” he said. “Maybe.”
But an equally powerful case could be made, he said, for viewing courts as politicized if they failed to reflect the ideology of people generally. “On this view,” Professor Posner continued, “we should congratulate rather than condemn Republicans for bringing much-needed ideological balance to the judiciary.”
No comments:
Post a Comment