A Supreme Court Short List (part 3 of 3)

The Top 4 revealed!

Below, I share the names and backgrounds of the four federal appeals court judges who scored the highest on my system. (Here are the first and second columns.)

But first, I want to very briefly explain one reason I created this scoring system.

Public Populism-Private Elitism

For as long as I can remember, many DC-focused conservatives have had a love-hate relationship with America’s most elite institutions. On the one hand, they’ve railed against the behavior of these organizations and their members. On the other hand, they’ve wanted to be embraced by these organizations and their members.

Obviously, this requires a degree of cognitive dissonance. Or maybe it’s just dissonance between words and actions. They say nasty things about these elite institutions publicly, but privately they’re applying to be members of the club.

A glaring recent example: The scads of vocal critics of “the swamp” who are actually full-fledged card-carrying members of it. Publicly, they have nothing but bile for DC and its web of think tanks, media outlets, and lobbyists, but they are comfortable creatures of that very environment.

An equally notable example is the recent explosion of public populists-private elites (PPPEs). They say that our leadership class is in a bubble and that its members don’t reflect or even know large swaths of the nation. But these PPPEs went to the most elite private schools themselves, and they live and have careers in a few elite regions along the Acela corridor. Importantly, when it’s time to hire or promote someone to something important, PPPEs reliably pick graduates of these same elite schools and denizens of these same quarters.

For the last two generations, the conservative legal community has been focused on originalism and reining in adventuring courts. I support that wholeheartedly. But for some reason, it has largely adopted its own version of PPPE-ism. It’s striking how many conservative legal leaders went to the same narrow set of elite private schools and then built careers and live along the Acela corridor.

In my view, the conservative legal movement needs to be not just originalist but republican as well. That means reflecting the sensibilities of all of America, not just the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. It means hailing from, being educated in, and building careers across the nation. It means understanding the political branches not just the courts. It means serving in state governments not just in DC.

My system produced a list of 10 extraordinarily talented and highly qualified SCOTUS candidates. Not a single one has a degree from Harvard, Princeton, or Yale. But all of them excelled in college and law school. Not a single one built a career in DC, NYC, or Boston. Every one has shown a commitment to a particular region. Nearly all have served at the state level. Nearly all have experience across the branches of government.

If we want to change the judiciary, we need to change our views about what qualifies an individual for legal public-service at the highest levels.

The List: #4, #3, #2, and #1

4. Judge Elizabeth L. Branch

Age: 57

11th Circuit (Alabama, Florida, Georgia)

Judge Branch was born and raised in Georgia, where she now serves. She graduated cum laude from Davidson, a liberal arts college in North Carolina. She earned a JD from Emory (in Georgia) with distinction; she was an editor of the law journal and was inducted into the Order of the Coif.

After clerking and working in private practice in her home state, Branch had several valuable professional experiences in the federal executive branch. She worked in the general counsel’s office at the Department of Homeland Security and then for the important regulatory entity OIRA (inside of OMB). Unlike judges who only know prosecutions and the work of DOJ, Branch has experience in executive-branch policymaking roles. She then served as a judge on the Court of Appeals of Georgia, earning valuable state-level experience.

SCOTUS needs justices who are committed to a place, exceled at non-Ivy+ schools, built careers outside of the Acela corridor, have policymaking experience, and have state-level experience. Branch fits the bill. Excellent candidate.