Ask da judge
If you're not a U.S. senator (and given the readership of this blog, the odds that you are not are merely huge, rather than astronomical), you might be saying, "Gee, Lex, suppose I wanted to ask Supreme Court nominee John Roberts a question. How could I do that?"
That's a good question, and as it happens, I have a couple of answers for you.
If you're a Democrat, you might want to hit this Web site, set up by seven female Democratic U.S. senators, and submit your questions. I think I should point out here that none of the seven are actually members of the Judiciary Committee, which is the group that will actually be asking Roberts questions, although one of the group, Barbara Boxer, is from the same state (California) as a committee member, Dianne Feinstein. Maybe they talk. I don't know.
If you're a Republican, your best bet is to contact committee chairman Arlen Specter using this form (scroll down).
I think it would be enlightening, inasmuch as there is no constitutional requirement that Supreme Court justices even be lawyers, to require all future nominees to have to answer questions from 100 randomly chosen average nonlawyer Americans. Live on C-SPAN, maybe. I could be wrong. It could be a huge waste of time. But I suspect we'd learn something useful about each nominee.
Comments (2)
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Actually, the question I'd like to ask is why the N&R hasn't run a story about this? I suspect had a conservative group cooked up a false ad about Democratic judge nominee you would have been all over it to "truth squad" it.
Instead, we must visit the Drudge Report to get the truth..
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash9.htm
Posted on August 10, 2005 11:04 AM
If you're asking why haven't N&R staffers written about it, the answer is that we typically don't assign stories without a compelling local angle to our own staffers.
If you're asking why the N&R hasn't run a wire article about it, I don't know because I'm not involved in daily coverage, but I can try to get you an answer if you'd like.
Posted on August 10, 2005 11:10 AM