Google yields this:
President Obama is apparently going to nominate Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. But, you rightly say, what is the Sports Economics angle in this story? Judge Sotomayor was the
judge who issued an injunction that said MLB teams could not impose a
collective bargaining agreement nor use replacement players to start the 1995 season, effectively ending the 1994-95 MLB strike.
James Kwak offers some general comments. He describes her as a "moderate" on economic issues. And here is another source on copyright:
A lot of freelancers know the centrist Sotomayor best from NY Times Company v. Tasini,
in which a large group of freelance writers sued the Times for putting
their articles into LexisNexis without further permission or
compensation. Sotomayor, a district judge at the time, ruled in favor of the Times
based on her interpretation of the Copyright Act of 1975. The decision
was reversed on appeal and the reversal was upheld by the Supremes — a win for the contractors, but not from Sotomayor.
Addendum: Here is a good summary article.
Wow, the district court decision in Tasini was pretty bad. The fact that she came up with that is the worst thing I’ve heard about her.
May I add to the previous comment that the apparent acquiescence of the Republican Party shows how bad things have become. The Republicans have forgotten Burke’s adage “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Notice the predictable reactionary talking points.
Pretty much no matter what it was in her (very solid) judicial career, it would have been “bad”. Seriously, imagine the counterfactual case that she’d ruled otherwise. There would be howling from the noise machine from the other direction.
Go ahead and spin it how you want it, wingnuts: it’s not just a hobby, you can turn it into a career.
When one wrong is institutional bias and the other wrong is selecting deliberately counter to a bias two wrongs make a right. If you think women make worse jurists come out and say it. If you don’t then explain why it’s fair that they make up 1/9th of the supreme court while being over half the population.
“a win for the contractors, but not from Sotomayor.”
Okay, but who was right?
It’s amazing people can has such strong opinions about someone they didn’t know existed yesterday. Even more telling is how the discussion is completely about who should or shouldn’t be worried about getting screwed.
I think the right thing would be addressing the institutional bias, not reinforcing it. You know, change and stuff. Not just tit-for-tat.
“explain why it’s fair that they make up 1/9th of the supreme court while being over half the population.”
Because some people don’t ask whether there should be exactly 4.5 women or one black or 1.5 hispanics (if confirmed, there will be an “unfair” number of hispanics). We just ask, “who is best?” And the FIRST question Obama must answer if he DID consider race and sex is how did he find such free lunch with no trade-offs? Or, don’t answer it, just call skeptics racists or sexists or whateverists.
And, it is quite possible that women do make worse Supreme Court Justices if there are fewer female candidates to choose from lower levels. That’s a problem affirmative action might solve in grammar school, but is asinine to fix at the Supreme Court.
However, do I think Obama said “grab me a minority first and foremost, but only if she will interpret the Constitution?” Don’t think so, he said “grab me a minority if she’ll use the bench to recreate an equal playing field.”
Where did this idea of “fairness” and proportional representation based on sex and race come from? This is The Supreme Court. The process is broken. It hides the opportunity costs and fosters these strawmen. American Idol does a better job. I wonder who is the forgotten man in this case.
What is best? In a field as subjective as law, I deny that you can determine that. It may be possible, I doubt this also, that you figure out who is best within a very narrow area of law, say intellectual property rights. Like many things at this level, we are probably best served by finding someone who meets a threshold, realizing that there are going to be a number of people at what appears to be the top.
Who is the best economist?
Steve
Indiana Jim, I suspect it’s a waste of time engaging you seriously but I posed my statement as a question for a reason. There are probably some legitimate reasons why men are ‘overrepresented’ in the courts. Monomania and work life balance are going to be the biggest ones though I really doubt that they account for anything resembling the disparity that exists especially given the history of the court. As for your questions I can more or less answer all of them they aren’t even particularly difficult, a)biological necessity b) being tall helps you play basketball, being black at the very least has a cultural impact on basketball much in the same way that whites dominate hockey c) because men are able to have children much longer than women making female youth a desirable characteristic out of proportion of how desirable male youth is d) it has been democratically decided that it would require to great a sacrifice of material prosperity to alter incentives sufficiently to create equal outcomes in purchasing power. Those weren’t particularly good answers but I didn’t feel like spending all that much time on them. It is only when there is inequality of outcomes without reason that I begin to suspect institutional biases and invoke policies that act specifically counter to them. You can draw an unrecognizable caricature of fairness but it’s based on definition of fairness that only you are using.
Your cute little Judge Judyism not withstanding, fair has complicated a nuanced meanings. It’s also a virtue, not the only virtue, or the greatest virtue, but a virtue. That perfect fairness can’t and shouldn’t exist does not render fairness meaningless any more than the fact that lying is commonplace makes honesty “pointless”.
I don’t want to monopolize this public conversation but I’ll address your points briefly. You are welcome to respond to any of my questions as you please but this will mark the end of my participation in this conversation.
1) Regarding age and experience. I am a young man and predictably I doubt that I will change my opinion on the topic although only time will tell. I would point out that your claim to wisdom and experience pulling rank on me is only valid if at one point you agreed with a position more similar to mine and had some sort of experience that drove you toward your current opinion. I’m suspicious of this and think it is more likely that you use the fact of your age to argue that your long held opinions should somehow be grandfathered (this is a pun) in. I find that argument nebulous.
2) Once again I think we discrepancies in outcomes exist it does not mean that there’s necessarily a problem of unfairness to be corrected. In the case of women who work continuously without breaks for childcare there is likely a huge correlation between not having children and education, as drive between women who do not have children and men in general. Thus the lack of leave for having a child is better thought of as a proxy for other traits rather than a reason in itself.
3) Not that I think this matters, but I’m really white. Now I realize that this is arguing from anecdote and I’m an N of one but since you aren’t engaging me on the level of any sort of data on this point I think this flies. At any rate I think the correlation between naked self interest and a pursuit of fairness is far less perfect than you suppose.
Just curious: NPR reports all USSC justices to be appellate court veterans (like nominee Sotomayor). Prior to confirmation for their SC seats, how did each respective justice’s appellate court opinions/decisions hold up in cases subsequently resolved by the USSC?
Indiana Jim, I suspect it’s a waste of time engaging you seriously but I posed my statement as a question for a reason. There are probably some legitimate reasons why men are ‘overrepresented’ in the courts. Monomania and work life balance are going to be the biggest ones though I really doubt that they account for anything resembling the disparity that exists especially given the history of the court. As for your questions I can more or less answer all of them they aren’t even particularly difficult, a)biological necessity b) being tall helps you play basketball, being black at the very least has a cultural impact on basketball much in the same way that whites dominate hockey c) because men are able to have children much longer than women making female youth a desirable characteristic out of proportion of how desirable male youth is d) it has been democratically decided that it would require to great a sacrifice of material prosperity to alter incentives sufficiently to create equal outcomes in purchasing power.
thankss
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