Whatchu talkin'bout Perfessor?

I have been reading The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Robert A. Caro's fourth volume in his biography of former President Lyndon Baines Johnson. It is fantastic as are the other three volumes that have been published so far.

On page 352 of the book there is a scene in which President Johnson gets angry at Horace Busby. Mr. Busby was a longtime aide of President Johnson. What had Mr. Busby done?  He had questioned the conclusions reached by two economists on President Johnson's staff, Kermit Gordon and Walter Heller. Unlike Mr. Busby, Mr. Gordon and Mr. Heller did not work for President Johnson before he became president. Instead, Mr. Gordon and Mr. Heller were brought into government by President Kennedy. President Kennedy favored hiring people from Harvard because he felt "you can't beat brains."

Strange math and strange predictions

George Mason University School of Law professor Ilya Somin has a post about how little coverage is being paid to the possibility that President Obama or Mitt Romney will get to pick a Supreme Court justice during the next four years.  Professor Somin writes

. . . this election could have a huge impact on the future of the Court. Even if a reelected Obama gets to relace two liberal justices with younger liberals or Romney gets to replace two conservatives with younger conservatives, that will still have a profound impact. There’s a big difference between a justice who is likely to be around for only a few more years, and one who could well serve for thirty years or more. Given increasing life expectancies, a justice who is in his or her early fifties when appointed could easily serve until 2050 or even later.

Note the could in the first sentence.  It might or might not have "a huge impact on the Court."  Perhaps that unknown is why few are discussing it.  However,  let's assume that the two appointments occur and that they do so in 2014 before both parties are gearing up for the 2016 presidential election.  Professor Somin assumes that these new justices might serve beyond the year 2050.  A fifty-year-old appointee in 2014 would have to serve until they are 88 in order to still be on the court in 2050.  Since professor Somin is assuming that Supreme Court justices serve until they are 88, which Supreme Court justices will be 88 during the next presidential term?

Is Chief Justice Roberts a playmaker?

Garrett Epps, a law professor at the University of Baltimore, has a piece at the Atlantic entitled "Does Scalia Still Mater?".  The answer according to Professor Epps is—SPOILER ALERT—no.  Someone needs to tell Richard Posner, Bryan Garner, and Justice Scalia that they can stop their feud. 

Being a legal pundit seems like good work if you can get it.

Jeffrey Toobin has a post at the New Yorker about how: (a) no more circuit court nominations will be voted on until after the election; and (b) that President Obama has not been very active about making nominations to the Federal judiciary.  We posted about President Obama and judicial vacancies here.