Should they have been thrown out of the ABA? In a perfect world, sure
Quit pretending minimum standards of decency are aspirations of perfection. Neither of these two men are qualified to handle slip-and-fail cases, much less adjudicate constitutional law.
Slip-and-fail cases is great. And they are horrible jurists in the sense that their decisions always hurt the people of the country in favor of moneyed interests.
HOWEVER, they took the classes, they passed the tests, and they know enough about law to act as a competent judge (something I think we’ll see a lot less of) in most cases. The legal system is not about the personal ethics or morality of the judges although it is affected by that.
[Wikipedia]
The process has been alleged by some (including the Federalist Society) to have a liberal bias.[84][85][86] For example, the ABA gave Ronald Reagan’s judicial nominees Richard Posner and Frank H. Easterbrook low “qualified/not qualified” ratings; later, the ABA gave Bill Clinton judicial nominees with similar resumes “well qualified” ratings.[87]
In 2001, the George W. Bush administration announced that it would cease submitting names to the ABA in advance of judicial nominations.[88] The ABA continued to rate nominees, just not before the names were released publicly. During the Obama administration, the ABA was once again given advance notice of judicial nominees for rating. President Trump returned to George W. Bush’s policy of not giving the ABA advanced notice of judicial nominees.[89] Seven of George W. Bush’s nominees received a ‘not qualified’ ranking, four of Clinton’s nominees, zero of Obama’s nominees, and, through December 2018, six of Trump’s nominees were rated ‘not qualified’.[90][91] For recent U.S. Supreme Court nominees, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., Justice Samuel Alito, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice Elena Kagan, Justice Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson all received the same “well qualified” rating.
Quit pretending minimum standards of decency are aspirations of perfection. Neither of these two men are qualified to handle slip-and-fail cases, much less adjudicate constitutional law.
Slip-and-fail cases is great. And they are horrible jurists in the sense that their decisions always hurt the people of the country in favor of moneyed interests.
HOWEVER, they took the classes, they passed the tests, and they know enough about law to act as a competent judge (something I think we’ll see a lot less of) in most cases. The legal system is not about the personal ethics or morality of the judges although it is affected by that.
[Wikipedia]