Maybe it Should be Different

I've been thinking more about the Supreme Court nomination.  In keeping with the topography of the times I have been trying to put myself in the headspace of someone with different leanings than my own.  With the President filling Supreme Court vacancies it seems like there will always be some population really upset and energized about the choice.  That seems kind of less than, and thinking about it, if the Supreme Court is really supposed to be on equal footing with Congress and the President, having the President fill the seat seems maybe a little inappropriate.  Also, it seems like more and more recently the role Congress is playing in the selections has become somewhat outsized.  We seem to have arrived at a point where if the executive and legislative branches are the same party then pretty much anything goes, and if they are different parties nothing will happen at all. 

That can't be what the Framers intended, right?  So maybe we need something new.

It had me wondering if there were some way to wind up with someone who could objectively be considered "the best" judge - like the country was reviewing a CV rather than having the thing at the mercy of political whim.  I'm not sure exactly how to quantify this because I'm not a judicial scholar, but it would seem like there ought to be a way to quantify what we'd be looking for.

Something like this:

• Certain number of years at a certain level of court.
• Below a certain percentage of rulings overturned.
• X number of decisions cited as precedent in other cases.
• Clean ethics slate.

Like I said, I don't do this for a living, but the list has to be out there.

I guess it is likely that this would produce a short list rather than a single person, but maybe keeping the existing process in place based on that short list would get me what I am looking for.

Seems like something like this would let a lot of air out of the balloon.  It make Supreme Court nominations less of an issue in Presidential elections.  It would relieve a lot of the weight on judges regarding the timing of their retirement.  It would take many of the third party participants out of the discussion.

Also seems like it might make us pay more attention to judicial appointments that aren't the Supreme court and to the behavior and record of sitting judges at the lower levels.  Those are probably good things too.

Changing something like this is probably impossible, but it does seem like thinking about it isn't a complete waste of time.