William Brennan
It's Alive
The Stevens Myth
Mr. Burns
The snickering began as soon as the shock from the 1994 election wore off. The Republicans had won back the Senate, and Alfonse D'Amato would become chairman of the Senate committee looking into Whitewater. Al D'Amato? The name was synonymous with sleaze. Would anyone take an ethics investigation under his direction seriously? READ MORE >>
The End of Privacy
"It's not their business," Monica Lewinsky allegedly told Linda Tripp, explaining why she was inclined to lie to Paula Jones's lawyers about her relationship with President Clinton, as her friend's hidden tape recorder whirled. "It's not their business." And Lewinsky was, of course, correct. READ MORE >>
The War on Immigrants
On December 14, 1994, a federal judge in Los Angeles enjoined the state of California from enforcing Proposition 187, which would deny health, education and welfare benefits to illegal aliens and their children. The case eventually may reach the Supreme Court; and Governor Pete Wilson has called on the justices to overturn a 1982 decision, Plyler v. READ MORE >>
Is Affirmative Action Doomed?
On September 7 Deval Patrick, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, filed a brief in a New Jersey case arguing that it is legal to fire a white teacher over a black teacher purely because of her race. And on August 19 a federal district judge in Austin, Texas, held that aspects of the affirmative action program at the University of Texas law school are unconstitutional. One or both of the cases may reach the Supreme Court before long. Each on its own could revive the debate about racial preferences and ventilate their more troubling assumptions. READ MORE >>
For Arnold
George Mitchell's withdrawal of his Supreme Court candidacy leaves the White House with a list of familiar names, many of them left over from the search that ended with the selection of Ruth Bader Ginsburg last year. Stephen Breyer of Boston and Amalya Kearse of New York are back in the running (see "The List," TNR, May 10, 1993). The leading contenders this week, however, seem to be Jose Cabranes of Connecticut, Drew Days, the U.S. solicitor-general, and Richard Arnold of Arkansas. While Days and Cabranes are able legal thinkers, Arnold is, on the merits, the best person for the job. READ MORE >>
The List
The White House has expanded its search for the next Supreme Court justice; and it is now possible to evaluate the scholarship, opinions and constitutional vision of the candidates. All are able federal judges. But some are more proficient than others at textual and historical analysis, and so better equipped to win over the swing justices and to challenge the Court's most aggressive intellectual, Antonin Scalia, on his own terms. In ascending order: READ MORE >>
