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Sunday, February 26, 2012
Vacancy on Supreme Court 2012 - Seigel is "easy pick for state's top court"
That is the headline to this great editorial in the Sunday Fort Wayne Journal Gazette:
The end-run around equal representation inevitably falls on a gratuitous discussion of abilities and best qualifications.Hogwash.
The best man for the Indiana Supreme Court is a woman.
When politicians demand “qualifications,” they sometimes use the word to mean “disqualification.” Who has the better résumé? The best experience? When it comes to people recommended for a state supreme court, all the candidates are at the top of their game. Résumés and experience become matters of judgment, not matters of fact.
In 2012, the “best qualification,” assuming the recommending committee has done its job, and we see no reason to doubt it, is the fact of being a woman.
“I might have used (gender diversity) as a tiebreaker. But this was not a tie,” Gov. Mitch Daniels said when he appointed Justice Stephen David to the all-male court in 2010. “My task was to find the best person on the merits, and I’m sure I did. Now the state is going to benefit from that for years to come.”
It was a poor argument then; it’s an unacceptable argument today, now that the governor has to fill a vacancy created when Chief Justice Randall Shepard retires. Regardless of David’s skills, any benefits for the state are countered by a total lack of representation of 50.8 percent of its population. A third of the practicing members of the Indiana Bar Association are female – to suggest that a Supreme Court justice can’t be found among them is disingenuous.
The Indiana Judicial Nominating Commission forwarded the names of Jane Seigel, Mark Massa and Cale Bradford to the governor on Thursday.
Seigel, the only woman among the finalists from 15 original candidates, has been executive director of the Indiana Judicial Center since 1998. She has experience in private practice, as general counsel to the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns and as deputy counsel for the city of Indianapolis.
The state’s highest court has an impressive record of achievement in improving judicial procedures throughout the state, but its reputation is limited by its composition. To continue as an all-male panel in 2012 places the public’s confidence in its work at risk. Gender diversity can’t be discounted when the court must rule on matters uniquely shaped by gender differences, including decisions on parental visitation rights, domestic violence and more.
Indiana, Iowa and Idaho are the only states with no female representation on their highest court. The work of law clerks might add a female perspective to Supreme Court decisions, but the absence of a female justice sends a poor message to every young woman in the state.
Each of the three finalists for the court is eminently qualified; only one is female.
It should make the governor’s work very easy.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on February 26, 2012 02:30 PM
Posted to Vacancy on Supreme Court 2012