Jamal Greene: recommendation

Transcript context

…What is the question we should be asking Supreme Court nominees that we’re not asking them now? Well, “should” is a funny word. In an ideal world because the confirmation process . . . Maybe we should be asking them nothing because the confirmation process doesn’t actually serve that much of an informational value. It’s political posturing and so forth. But if one were actually to try to design a confirmation process that was useful, I think you would just ask them their views about cases that have been decided. Ask them if those cases were correct. They say that biases them in some way, or conveys bias. I just don’t buy that. One can have a view about something decided in the past and change one’s view based on new information. There’s no necessary bias. The idea that they haven’t thought about these things or have no formed views, or that we shouldn’t be aware of what their views are, seems to me to be profoundly undemocratic. If I were God and could control the process, I would have a conversation about the Supreme Court’s docket. But the court itself is undemocratic by design, so it’s funny for me to hear you say some practice in the confirmation process is undemocratic. Isn’t that the whole point?…

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