Don’t say he didn’t warn you. Sen. Jeff Sessions has taken issue with several of President Obama’s criteria for picking a Supreme Court nominee, but he’s especially concerned about the stipulation that the new justice have a “keen understanding of how the law affects the daily lives of the American people.”
That priority, Sessions warned ABC News this week, is “dangerous.”
One has to wonder if Sessions was similarly terrified in 2006, when in his confirmation hearings before Sessions’ committee, now-Justice Samuel Alito made an eloquent speech about his ability to identify with the concerns of immigrants, children, victims of discrimination, and people with disabilities.
He shouldn’t have worried: despite his professed understanding, Alito helped bring us a variety of decisions that have ignored the realities of daily life in America.
But if he sees out-of-touch as the most desirable quality in a Supreme Court justice, Sessions may have found his ideal Justice in John G. Roberts. Roberts has already reassured us that he missed the Internet age entirely. And on Monday, the Chief Justice showed us his lack of concern for low-wage laborers when he belittled the situation of workers forced to sign bad contracts as “economic inequality or whatever.”
If Sessions is looking for a Supreme Court that disregards the lives of ordinary Americans, he’s got it. But maybe it wouldn’t be so dangerous for our newest Justice to understand the difference between “economic inequality” and “whatever.”