We\u2019ve all heard that it\u2019s better to deal with the devil you know rather than the one you don\u2019t. In the United States, we have a system in which the nine individuals set policy for one of the three branches of government and they don\u2019t have to tell us a damn thing about themselves when applying for the job.<\/p>\n
Imagine any other job interview in which you didn\u2019t have to answer the questions thrown your way. What if you could respond to a possible employer with words to the effect of \u201cI don\u2019t want to answer your hypothetical question about what I would do in that situation because I might actually be called upon to answer it when I\u2019m on the job.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is the way that the Senate Judiciary Committee has operated with Judge Neil Gorsuch, President Donald Trump\u2019s first nominee for the United States Supreme Court. But this is not a Trumpian \u2013 Republican-controlled Senate problem. This is a structural and procedural issue in governance that has existed through most of our history.<\/p>\n
The mythology of our judicial system is that the bench is populated with judges who bring no pre-conceived notions to their jobs. Year after year, generation after generation, members of the elite Senate Judiciary Committee has continued to perpetuate this myth.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a charade. Senators may ask Supreme Court nominees what their views are on Roe v Wade<\/em>, or on affirmative action, or executive privilege, or virtually anything else of importance that might come before the Court. But the history of responses, and now the expectations of responses, is that the nominees are going to stonewall the questions. We learn nothing.<\/p>\n