The U.S. Supreme Court will likely remain conservative throughout President Obama's years in office even if he makes appointments to the court, National Public Radio legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg said at Thursday's Kennedy Political Union event.
"Of the 43 justices who have served on the court since 1937, four of the five most conservative are current members of the court," Totenberg said, referencing a study conducted by Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner. "Of those four, three also happen to be the court's youngest members. They are not the justices who are likely to be leaving and conversely, the oldest members of the Court are its most liberal members."
The University of Texas at Austin's Supreme Court Ideology Project considers the four most conservative members of the court to be Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Roberts, Alito and Thomas are the Court's three youngest justices. Associate Justices John Paul Stevens, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter are the most liberal of the nine justices, according to the Project.
While Stevens is almost 89 years old and Ginsburg recently underwent surgery to combat pancreatic cancer, Souter - who is younger than both of them - will likely leave the court first, Totenberg said.
"He really hates Washington," she said. "He disdains Washington parties, he even disdains Washington cultural events, and he longs to return to his native New Hampshire."
Obama, whether he spends four or eight years as president, will likely have the opportunity to appoint only one or two justices to the court, Totenberg said. The Constitution requires the U.S. Senate to cast a majority vote on whether or not the president's appointee will be allowed to serve on the court.
Obama's first nominee to the Supreme Court would almost certainly be a woman, Totenberg said.
"We have a court that only has one female member, and a president that was elected with a majority of the women's vote," she said. "If he could do something to change it, the pressure on him will be enormous."
Amanda Merkwae, a freshman in the School of Public Affairs, said if Obama does not select a woman for his first court appointment, she would still be hopeful.
"Judging by how many women supported his campaign, I really think that if he did not appoint a woman for the first appointment, he definitely would for the second," she said.
While most recent court justices had prior judicial experience, Obama might choose to nominate an academic or a politician without this experience, Totenberg said. Some of history's most dynamic justices - including former Chief Justice Earl Warren - had no judicial experience prior to serving on the court.
Austin Walsh, a sophomore in the School of International Service, said he believes Obama may help the court if he put forward a nominee without prior judicial experience.
"Although I think judicial experience is very valid, I think that there are other experiences that are very necessary to a well-balanced court," he said. "When you're looking in terms of diversity on the Court I think you need life experience as well."
Jared Alves, a freshman in SPA, said he gives Totenberg credit for reporting on the Supreme Court for more than 20 years.
"That's something that not many people are going to be able to do, to take in all that information and to put it all together in a way that people who are not that familiar with the Court are going to be able to understand it," he said.
You can reach this staff writer at hperlman@theeagleonline.com.
