[Vision Thing]

Better to have someone who has been a judge that we can tell is immune to it (black robe fever), then to put someone on the bench who may fall victim to it.

JLS made this intesting point on another thread:

A thread that goes through Bush's two appointments to SCOTUS is they currently live in DC. His reasoning might well be, if they were likely to go native, they would have by now. This more than anything else has been the GOP problem with SCOTUS appointments, people from Arizona, Minnesota, New Hampshire, even Boston going native when the start working inside the beltway.

[muawiyah]

In three other threads on this subject, I've identified the "move to Washington" as part of the problem in getting candidates for the USSC.

Not everybody wants to live and work in this area.

My old employer, USPS, used to be able to hire in trainee specialists and managers at the equivalent of the GS 7/9 level. Such folks typically had a Bachelors or Master's degree from a decent school. Now, to get such folks to move to DC they have to start at the equivalent of the GS 13/14 level. It's the same for all the other headquarters agencies in town.

Working here is nuts!

[JLS]

Yeah, thanks for bringing this up here. No one can read no less reply on every thread on this topic.

I wonder which is more of an issue, black robe fever or going native inside the beltway. As I remember Blackmon, Souter, Kennedy and Stevens were all judges before their appointment to the SCOTUS.