Why 3 Supreme Court Justices Didn’t Attend the State of the Union

[mfcorey1]

President Obama Delivers State Of The Union Address At U.S. Capitol © Provided by Time Article President Obama Delivers State Of The Union Address At U.S. Capitol

The wording in the Constitution is simple and straightforward: the President “shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union.” There's nothing in there about the Supreme Court justices and, accordingly, there's nothing simple and straightforward about their attendance.

This year, six justices were in attendance, while three of the most conservative members of the court, Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito were noticeably absent. In the modern era, custom has held that the justices would show up in their official robes and sit impassively. But in recent years, they've become more resistant to the tradition.

Justice Antonin Scalia’s absence is no surprise. It was the 19th State of the Union in a row that he’s skipped since he considers the speech a “childish spectacle.”

Justice Clarence Thomas’s empty seat was also unsurprising. In 2012, Thomas said he doesn’t attend the annual event because “it has become so partisan and it's very uncomfortable for a judge to sit there.”

Thomas’s remark gets to the heart of why the State of the Union has become a painful event for the justices: the address has become a “political pep rally,” according to Chief Justice John Roberts (who still attends nonetheless), as the justices are forced to sit calmly while the President and members of government around them cheer and crow about the politics of the moment.

For years, attendance among the justices has been declining: From 1965 through 1980, the attendance rate was 84 percent. Over the next two decades, the number dropped to 53 percent. Since 2000, the rate has fallen to 32 percent, according to a study by Todd Peppers of Roanoke College and Michael Giles of Emory University.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/why-3-supreme-court-justices-didn%E2%80%99t-attend-the-state-of-the-union/ar-AA8pimD?ocid=mailsignout

[Sherman A1]

1. Frankly

I do not believe they should all attend. I believe that from a security standpoint some should be just as the designated cabinet officer, somewhere else along with a few members of Congress.

[merrily]

3. I vote for Ginsburg to stay away from the SOTU so she can be the Designated Survivor Justice!

Last edited Wed Jan 21, 2015, 09:50 AM - Edit history (1)

I mean, what is the Secretary of Transportation going to know about picking and training 8 new SCOTUS Justices?

[PoliticAverse]

8. Ginsburg apparently fell asleep at this SOTU. n/t

[merrily]

10. I am not understanding which point you are trying to make.

When the camera pans, I see plenty of younger, healthier members of all parties asleep, even though I am sure the general deal is that the cameras should not make any effort to to show them.

[PoliticAverse]

19. The point is if you want to pick a single justice to represent the Supreme Court at the SOTU,

don't pick someone that has repeatedly fallen asleep at them...

"She has joked that in the past former Justice David Souter was the designated nudger."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in-the-loop/post/obamas-speech-didnt-excite-ginsburg/2013/02/13/b4531d8e-75fc-11e2-aa12-e6cf1d31106b_blog.html

[merrily]

21. Why not? Falling asleep at the SOTU does not affect performance of her duties as a Justice or

a Designated Survivor Justice.

Even if it did, she would read the speech, as she probably did before Obama started speaking anyway.

If I am not mistaken, I have glimpsed Biden nodding off during prior SOTUS. Should we disqualify him from being VP or designated survivor for the non-judicial side of the government?

Sorry, asleep or awake, she's my choice--and for very good reasons.

[PoliticAverse]

24. Oh I see, you are picking her to be the only justice not at the STOU

whereas I interpreted your comment to be the one 'designated justice'
to attend the SOTU.

[merrily]

26. You are right. I better change my post

to make clear what I meant.

LOL, I wish I knew a nicer term for brain fart.

[Sherman A1]

11. I did too and do so every year

but, I believe it has something to do with my day starting at 2:30am.

[longship]

15. She had a stent placed in a heart artery this last week.

Give her a break. Maybe you ought to see how Obama hugged her to understand.

[merrily]

29. My bad. My original post about Ginsburg led PoliticAverse astray.

[merrily]

2. I hear Scalia takes a dump in that ridiculous hat he affects before he puts it on in the am.

If SCOTUS Justices on my payroll can't grow the fuck up and do the right thing for a few hours once a year, why should I post maturely about it?

[lastlib]

13. (that would partly explain the malodorous emanations coming from him.....

....but not completely.)

[merrily]

22. He's very smart so I can't honestly call him shit for brains. I did the next best thing

that occurred to me.

Besides, his absurd hat affection is an easy target--and if anyone deserves a cheap shot, it's that partisan posing as an originalist to lie to us that the Founders considered corporations people.

[avebury]

4. Based upon his opinion of the SOTU Speech, Thomas

should not be sitting the SC bench as well. Talk about acting in a partisan manner!

Justice Clarence Thomas’s empty seat was also unsurprising. In 2012, Thomas said he doesn’t attend the annual event because “it has become so partisan and it's very uncomfortable for a judge to sit there.”

[merrily]

12. Based on the American Bar Association's opinion of Thomas, probably Thomas should not be

sitting on the SC bench.

[1StrongBlackMan]

14. And that was BEFORE he was seated ...

unfortunately, he has done nothing to improve that judgment.

[merrily]

23. A SCOTUS with so little curiosity about the usually important cases being argued before him

that very, very, very rarely has a question for any attorney?

(Be still my heart. 1SBM and I found common ground about a very important subject! All things are indeed possible. )

[1StrongBlackMan]

30. Actually ...

We agree on a great deal; however, as another DUer pointed out to me, our disagreements are mostly just a matter of degree, and/or tactics.

But to Thomas, his approach to his seat really reflects what every appellate attorney knows, but will not admit ... oral arguments really are just for show, and have little affect on the outcome of the case.

The oral arguments are really just a recitation of the stuff contained in the brief that was submitted, read and dissected, months before the oral argument ... there is little, if any, new ground broken.

[merrily]

31. Perhaps it is that we tend to engage only around our disagreements.

Yes, BUT.

No brief dispassionately tells the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Rather, each presents a position, some of which positions oppose the position in another brief.

If you have several briefs, each trying to present a story in the most favorable way to one position or client, surely, at some point, something in one brief doesn't seem to quite jive with something in another brief. Think Roshomon, for one example: https://www.google.com/search?q=roshomon&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Even when people read a book of fiction, they have questions for the author.

And, at times, when I have listened to arguments on TV, it has seemed to me that some question caught a lawyer off guard.

So, yes, it's mostly show business a lot of the time. But he has been on the court for a very long time during which an awful lot of important cases have been presented.

[1StrongBlackMan]

32. LOL ...

Perhaps it is that we tend to engage only around our disagreements.

We HAVE to ... lest we merely echo one another!

[merrily]

33. Key word being "only?"

Some people seem to want echoes and only echoes. To each his or her own, I guess.

[caraher]

5. Alito can't keep his mouth shut anyway

it's just as well that he skip the thing and not become the story

[merrily]

7. He becomes the story by skipping it anyway. And the story will always include

his miming disagreement with the President.

I agree with Scalia that it is a partisan spectacle. But so isn't everything in politics anymore, including the frickin' SCOTUS, including Scalia's opinions and including his medieval scholar's hat or whatever that is on his thick head. Good grief, I cringe involuntarily sometimes when I watch the national conventions of the parties. Does that mean I disengage from politics? Because of some freakin' show business?

The content of the SOTU is still important. That is what the media and the public should be focusing on, not real or imagined snubs of the event by SCOTUS Justices.

Very reluctantly, I have to hand Scalia one thing: He's away for 12 years, which means he is not snubbing only a President from another Party. Beyond that, he's still the biggest partisan disgrace on the Court, followed closely by Thomas and Alito, in that order. JMO.

[KansDem]

6. Probably attending right-wing fund raisers...

A few months ago, ThinkProgress launched a series of investigations into relationship of the right flank of the Supreme Court — Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Antonin Scalia — with corporate donors and Republican operatives. In October, we revealed, through a document obtained from Koch Industries, that Scalia and Thomas had attended secret right-wing fundraisers organized by Charles Koch to coordinate political strategy. ThinkProgress has now discovered more events attended by conservative Supreme Court justices.

The Manhattan Institute, funded by major corporations like CIGNA, Koch Industries and ExxonMobil, is a conservative think tank in New York that produces right-wing policy papers as well as sponsoring speeches for judges and Republican politicians. In 2008, Justice Thomas headlined the Manhattan Institute’s Wriston Lecture; last October, Justice Alito was the headline speaker for the same event. According to the Manhattan Institute’s website, an individual must contribute between $5,000 to $25,000 to attend the Wriston Lecture. “To be invited to the Wriston Lecture,” Debbie Ezzard, a development official at the Manhattan Institute told ThinkProgress, “you have to give $5,000.”

--more--
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/01/26/140655/alito-thomas-singer/

I remember a time when Supreme Court justices were above politics. Now they're nothing more than lackeys for the Kochs and other OnePercenters.

[merrily]

9. One year, Scalia was a speaker at another event. He claimed he did not do it to upstage the SOTU.

Said the SOTU is just not anything he puts on his calendar, so when he got the invite, he accepted without realizing it was SOTU night.

I don't believe him for a second. The other Justices are talking about it, putting it on their calendars, maybe teasingly asking him if he is going to attend, esp. his good friend Ruth. (That woman is a national treasure!)

Besides, if he not going to attend, the least he can do is put it on his calendar to make sure he is not an even bigger distraction from the event than his self-centered boycott makes him. JMO

[tammywammy]

16. It is a heavily political event, I'm okay if they all skip it. n/t

[Pacifist Patriot]

17. Same here. I couldn't care less if the SC justices are there are not.

[Vattel]

18. They should skip it. There is no reason for them to be there.

And presidents sometimes use their presence against them.

[merrily]

25. OK I can see that, if all skip it. Then, it does not become its own story that distracts from the

agenda that the President wants to set for the coming year for the nation.

Make a rule and everyone stay home or everyone go. This is not your night to grab headlines, though.

[The_Commonist]

20. Holy crap! I can't believe I actually agree with Scalia, Thomas and Roberts about something!

The SOTU is a "childish spectacle" and "political pep rally" and it SHOULD be "very uncomfortable for a judge to sit there." But I suppose even those guys are bound to be right once in a great while.

I was really really hoping that Obama would be the one who would finally murder this silly tradition, and send congress a written report each January, like in the olde days. Oh well, maybe next year?

(of course, as far as these childish political pep rallies are concerned, Obama does a great job! But that is what they have become, and what they have been for most on my life...)

[Octafish]

27. Was 'Real Housewives of New York' renewed?

That would explain Clarence.

[B Calm]

28. Clarence Thomas wrote the book on partisan politics.

[former9thward]

34. Sonia Sotomayor skipped last year's SOTU

She was in California judging moot court finals at the University of California Irvine Law School. Not exactly the most important thing on earth.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/scotus-sotu

Stevens and Souter skipped when Bush was doing the SOTU.

Thomas is right about one thing: The SOTU has become totally partisan like everything else in life. I don't know what president started the tradition of using people in the audience as props for the speech but that turned it into nothing but a show and that is why ratings have dropped constantly for people watching.

[AndreaCG]

35. No surprise Scalia thinks it's a childish spectacle

Heaven forfend the 99% be informed about the nation's affairs by the head of the executive branch. And as for Thomas' comment, he and Scalia are the kings of partisanship if for no other reason than not recusing themselves from Bush v Gore since both had close relatives working for the Bush campaign. With numerous other examples too.

[hifiguy]

36. Uncle Ruckus complaining about partisanship?

That is RICH. He is a judge in the same way I am Napoleon.