In Defense of Figureheads
Using Geraldo Rivera as a barometer of Latino opinion is probably a bad idea, but there was something oddly touching about this (via):
I have goosebumps,” says Rivera, 65, born to a Catholic, Puerto Rican father and Jewish mother. He defines himself as the former. … “It finally happened. Wow. Look how the Puerto Rican community came up with someone so world-class,” says Rivera of Sotomayor . . .
Our resident attorney, the estimable Mark Thompson, has already provided some much-needed context for Sotomayor’s more controversial utterances, but I think Rivera’s point is worth expanding on. Obviously, elevating a woman of Puerto Rican descent to the Supreme Court isn’t going to magically save her ethnic community. In fact, I doubt Sotomayor’s appointment will have any material impact on the well-being of Puerto Rican (or Latino) citizens.
There is something to be said, however, for a governing class that actually reflects our diverse electorate, and appointing an otherwise well-qualified jurist who also happens to be Hispanic strikes me as a decent way to signal that there is some meaningful connection between the citizenry and its political leadership.
I also think there’s a persuasive conservative case to be made in favor of diversifying the upper tiers of American government. Commentators of all stripes will occasionally note the growing disconnect between elites and the electorate, but this complaint is aired more frequently by observers on the Right, who decry the decline of civic and community participation, harp on the fact that fewer citizens are paying income taxes, and are generally appreciative of a dose of good old-fashioned populism.
Sometimes this tendency goes too far, but the central insight behind these criticisms is that citizens ought to retain some tangible connection to their government and their communities, that an engaged citizenry is the best way to combat corruption and safeguard liberty, and that our constitutional system would be hollow indeed without an enduring tradition of civic participation. This outlook is fundamentally inclusive, and it emphasizes the importance of getting people involved in the business of government.
This would all be a moot point if Sotomayor was under-qualified for a seat on the Supreme Court, but I don’t think anyone is seriously questioning her impressive credentials. Ceteris paribus, I think it’s eminently reasonable (desirable, even) to seek out a diverse array of candidates for high-ranking government positions. Bush, to his credit, seemed to understand this. I’m not terribly worried if Obama follows suit.
I’ve been thinking something similar. The Court doesn’t have automatic legitimacy; it has to keep earning it. If the candidate is qualified and also represents a group that hasn’t been represented on the Court before, the Court’s political legitimacy should be on balance enhanced. So the primary benefit of diversity on the Court has little to do with how decisions are made and much more to do with how the Court is perceived by the population.Report
I think that’s exactly right. Mark and I actually discussed a similar point in the context of judicial activism a while back.Report
I really think this is the elephant in the living room when it comes to the political parties’ relationships with various populations of citizens.
Wikipedia tells me the US population is roughly 66% white, 15% hispanic, 13% black, and 5% asian and more or less 50% female.
The Senate is 95% white, 2% hispanic, 2%asian, 1% black (and soon to be 0%, for unobjectionable idiosyncratic reasons). And it is 83% male and 17% female.
The Supreme Court is 88% white, 0% hispanic, 11% black, and 0% asian. It is 88% male and 11% female.
The House is 83% white, 5% hispanic, 10% black, and 2% asian. It’s 83% male and 17% female.
(Side note: The male/female ratio is bizarrely consistent)
Now, as an outsider, here’s my summary of GOP/conservative responses to this situation:
There’s a small contingent that likes this fact and is willing to be explicit about it. That is, they believe that it is morally correct for the nation to be governed primarily or exclusively by white males and they will say so. There is a fairly large contingent (and this is where I’ll get into trouble for mindreading) that likes this fact but knows they can’t really say it out loud. This is the Limbaugh contingent. They don’t necessarily think while male supremacy should be the law of the land, they just prefer having white males in power. There’s another good sized contingent that recognizes that this skewed distribution of power is a problem, but they’re opposed to doing anything about it. It is a legacy of less enlightened times, they’ll say, but the cure is worse than the disease, for any value of x that represents a cure. And there is a very small faction that believes that it’s a big problem and that something should be done about it.
On the other hand, in the Democratic party that last group is a massive contingent, with the remainder of the party coming from the previous ‘let nature take its course’ group.
Now, as a promising minority or female politician it should not be difficult for me to decide between a party that is heavily represented by people who are opposed to my having power and a party that believes I represent an underrepresented group.
It’s a feedback loop that the GOP will have a very hard time getting out of. Perhaps their salvation will come when (assuming if) power is more evenly distributed and the distinction between the “it’s bad, but don’t do anything” and the “it’s bad, and do something” groups becomes moot.Report