NOTE: Sorry that it took me so long to put this post up. I have been having trouble getting back into the swing of the lightning-fast blogos. These are just a few thoughts I had during the visit from the leader of our judicial system. If you have similar or different reactions, drop a comment.
I have to confess that I was disappointed in Justice Roberts' actual speech. He talked about advice that he gives to young lawyers and law students. His stories were self-depricating and certainly jokesy enough. But I felt like the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court should have said something interesting about the state of justice, and instead he gave a bland talk that I have heard one hundred times in law school. Important details make all the difference, and so on. This is really not all that interesting.
Moreover, I did not think that it was aided by his reference to the Montana standard Norman Maclean. He tailored his advice to Montana by comparing it to Young Men and Fire. The gesture was nice, but like I say, the speech itself was a dull truism told countless times to law students, and I cannot imagine being a non-law student with some expectation of greatness. I won't belabor the point. He did end the speech with a fairly funny joke about the judges in hell.
On the other hand, the smaller session that he did before his public talk was much more meaty. He answered questions from students, only--one of my professors thought that this was to prevent an ideological stand by some professor who has been pouring over the same general area for years. I doubt that it would have made much of a difference, since students are often as mired in the minutia as their teachers. Like his performance during his confirmation hearings, Justice Roberts answered all of the questions without resorting to the old mantra: this case may come up before the court. Some people forget that he didn't do much of this during his confirmation hearings because Justice Alito repeated it so bloody often.
You have probably heard about this already, but Chief Justice John Roberts is coming to the UM campus today for the Jones and Tamm lecture series. This is a pretty big deal. The chief justice rarely speaks in public and it would be worth standing in lines for a few hours to listen to him. The lecture starts at 2:00 PM in the University Theater. If you can't make it, NPR is broadcasting live and will replay from 8:00-9:00 PM this evening. If you want a seat you should probably get there early.
I will probably post some thoughts later in the day about the lecture
Minority Leader Sen. Corey Stapleton (R-Billings) seems to feel left out of the process here:
Other Republicans on the committee were caught by surprise by the moves and suggested Senate Democrats had worked out the strategy behind closed doors.
Senate Minority Leader Corey Stapleton, R-Billings, asked Cobb whether he had spoken to Senate Democratic leaders about the plan. Cobb said he had.
"Is there some reason you haven't spoken to us?" Stapleton said to Cobb, an independent-minded senator. There was no response.
Could there be a reason why Sen. Stapleton was left out? It might be the fact that the Republicans openly declared war on the Governor and the Democrats, as the session began. Maybe it's because they have refused to consider compromising an inch to Democrats or sensibility throughout the session. Seriously, after the House leadership, with at least tacit support from Sen. Stapleton, brokered a closed door deal to subvert a thirty year old process--let alone the 11,000 or so constituents, whose testimony was disregarded--it is a pretty tall order for Democrats and reasonable Republicans to trust the Republican leadership.
Senate President Cooney apologized for any "out of the loop" feelings that may have been caused, but can we really blame the Senate for trying to take the last available rational action? I certainly can't.
That aside, Sen. Stapleton candidly raises an important issue:
Stapleton said he had no problem with the Senate committee doing what it was going to do, but he called on the Senate to take "the higher ground" instead of rushing through the process and risk making mistakes.
"I would just ask that we slow down so we don't do just as the House did," Stapleton said, later objecting to the Senate committee making the changes in "such a hurried method."
Stapleton said he didn't want the Senate to show disrespect to the House.
Without adopting the bad ideas that the House has lain before them, I am not sure that the Senate can tread around the Representatives' feelings. He is right, however, that Senate Democrats and reasonable Republicans should heed their own advice to the House. A hasty fix might be just as bad as the original hasty meddling. That said, none of the reported changes seem too outlandish.
The Trib makes a joke this morning of Sen. Don Ryan's plea for paper towels in public restrooms. Oddly enough, this is exactly the kind of thing that a Senator has to do to ensure dry hands for his constutuents when they leave public toilets. I remember, one of the aged bathrooms in the Liberal Arts building at the University of Montana had factory-engraved instructions on one of the many air-blowing hand dryers in three steps. Underneath the last step some inventive user had etched "Step Four: Wipe Hands on Pants." No truer words ever grafittoed a public bathroom.
