. The late Supreme Court JusticeAntonin Scalia argued that because courts are not electedrepresentative bodies, they have no business determining certaincr4itical social issues. He wrote:
Judges are selected precisely fortheir skill as lawyers; whether they reflect the policy views of aparticular constituency is not (or should not be) relevant. Notsurprisingly then, the Federal Judiciary is hardly a cross-sectionof America. Take, for example, this Court, which consists of onlynine men and women, all of them successful lawyers who studied atHarvard or Yale Law School. Four if the nine are natives of NewYork City. Eight of them grew up in east-and west-coast States.Only one hails from the vast expanse in-between. Not a singleSouth-westerner or even, to tell the truth, a genuine Westerner(California does not count.) Not a single evangelical Christian (agroup that comprises about one quarter of Americans), or even aProtestant of any denomination. To allow [an important socialissue] to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highlyunrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even morefundamental than no taxation without representation: no socialtransformation without representation.
Do you agree?
. The late Supreme Court JusticeAntonin Scalia argued that because courts are not electedrepresentative bodies, they have no business determining certaincr4itical social issues. He wrote:
Judges are selected precisely fortheir skill as lawyers; whether they reflect the policy views of aparticular constituency is not (or should not be) relevant. Notsurprisingly then, the Federal Judiciary is hardly a cross-sectionof America. Take, for example, this Court, which consists of onlynine men and women, all of them successful lawyers who studied atHarvard or Yale Law School. Four if the nine are natives of NewYork City. Eight of them grew up in east-and west-coast States.Only one hails from the vast expanse in-between. Not a singleSouth-westerner or even, to tell the truth, a genuine Westerner(California does not count.) Not a single evangelical Christian (agroup that comprises about one quarter of Americans), or even aProtestant of any denomination. To allow [an important socialissue] to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highlyunrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even morefundamental than no taxation without representation: no socialtransformation without representation.
Do you agree?
