Integrity Scores on Supreme Court

Justice Ruth Bader GinsburgWhatever else may be said about the Supreme Court’s current term, which ends in about a month, it will be remembered as the time when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg found her voice, and used it.

What she is saying is that this is not law, it’s politics. She is accusing the other side of making political claims, not legal claims.” – Pamela Karlan, a Stanford law professor, speaking of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s comment linking the outcome of the abortion case last month to the fact of the court’s changed membership.

The oral dissent has not been, until now, Ginsburg’s style. She has gone years without delivering one, and never before in her 15 years on the court has she delivered two in one term. In her past dissents, both oral and written, she has been reluctant to breach the court’s collegial norms.

Said Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, a sociologist and longtime friend,

“She has always been regarded as sort of a white-glove person, and she’s achieved a lot that way.

Now she is seeing that basic issues she’s fought so hard for are in jeopardy…

International Herald Tribune