Comments on McGahn A Brief History of Judicial Appointments From the Last 50 Years Through the Trump Administration

Donald McGahn is a respected member of the Washington D.C. legal community, known especially for his expertise in election law. He served as White House counsel in the Trump administration until October 2018 and was a key player in the Trump administration’s judicial appointments process.His article is witty, sometimes revealing, but above all a description, as he sees it, of the decades-long deterioration of the process for Senate confirmation of federal judicial nominees, with some blame assigning. He also provides a few behind-the-scenes looks at Trump administration confirmation battles, and some recommendations for easing contentiousness in— or at least, speeding up—the process. While he does not hide his Republican leanings—e.g., “President Carter made no Supreme Court appointments ... thankfully”—this is in no way a slash-and-burn propaganda piece. His article stands for two propositions—first, the process has deteriorated and, second, although, there is blame to go around, Democrats deserve more of it than Republicans. The article also vindicates the always timely aphorism that the plural of “anecdote” is not “data.” McGahn argues primarily from example. Those he cites are illustrative and help flesh out his arguments, but they are less dispositive than they might appear on first blush. Of course, examples are one staple of most any argument—this commentary included—but McGahn relies on them largely to the exclusion of aggregate data. To be sure, the article is a lightly edited revision of a conversational law school lecture and does not purport to be an academic article weighed down by dense scholarly apparatus. That in some ways is one of its virtues. But even an informal narrative can seek various types of data to illuminate its subject—or acknowledge the limitations of the examples it uses. In Part I of this commentary, I summarize the judicial appointment developments of the last forty or fifty years more fully than does McGahn; in Part II, I unpack what might be charitably called creative history by McGahn and other defenders of the Senate’s shutting down the 2016 Merrick Garland Supreme Court nomination; in Part III, I consider McGahn’s and others’ proposals to help change the nomination and confirmation process; and in Part IV, I summarize briefly what appear to be underlying causes of that broken process and possible consequences of a judiciary populated in no small part by judges who gained office with a minimal popular mandate for their selection

Of Standards for Extra-Judicial Behavior

A Review of The Brandeis/Frankfurter Connection: The Secret Political Activities of Two Supreme Court Justices by Bruce Allen Murph

Improving the Understanding of the Impact of Creative Problem Solving Training through an Examination of Individual Differences

This thesis addressed the relationships between students who reported enjoyment of learning and the perceived future value of using the various components, stages and tools of the Creative Problem Solving (CPS) process, and their CPS styles as measured by the Buffalo Creative Process Inventory (BCPI). Data was collected using the BCPI and an end-of-course survey in both graduate and undergraduate introductory CPS courses from January through December 2000. A key quantitative outcome revealed that the principles and tools in relation to the divergent thinking aspect of the CPS process were the most enjoyable to learn and rated the highest future value. Key qualitative outcomes described the CPS principle ‘Deferring Judgement’ as a significant learning from the course, as well as the incorporation of course principles into one’s personal and professional lives. In contrast to the overall positive response to divergent thinking, individuals with High Ideator and High Developer preferences indicated that they did not enjoy or see much future value in these tools and principles. An implication suggested the relevance of using the BCPI in order to maximize transference of learning in the introductory CPS course. Recommendations for future research and study replication were discussed

Non-ALJ Adjudicators in Federal Agencies: Status, Selection, Oversight, and Removal

This article republishes—in substantively similar form—our 2018 report to the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) concerning federal agencies’ adjudicators who are not administrative law judges (ALJs). (We refer to these adjudicators as “non-ALJ Adjudicators” or “non-ALJs.”) As our data indicate, non-ALJs significantly outnumber ALJs. Yet non-ALJs are often overlooked and difficult to discuss as a class because of their disparate titles and characteristics. To obtain more information on non-ALJs, we surveyed agencies on non-ALJs’ hearings and, among other things, the characteristics concerning non-ALJs’ salaries, selection, oversight, and removal. We first present our reported data on these matters, which are the most comprehensive data to date on the non-ALJs’ indicia of impartiality. We then provide suggested practices for agencies to promote non-ALJs’ actual and apparent impartiality in presiding over agency hearings

Central US earthquake catalog for hazard maps of Memphis, Tennessee

An updated version of the catalog that was used for the current national probabilistic seismic-hazard maps would suffice for preduction of large-scale hazard maps of the Memphis urban area. Deaggregation maps provide guidance as to the area that a catalog for calculating Memphis hazard should cover. For the future, the Nuttli and local netword catalogs could be examined for earthquakes nor presenly included in the cataloge. Additional work on the aftershock removal might reduce hazard uncertainty. Graphs of decadal and annual earthquake rates suggest completeness at and above magnitude 3 for the last three or four decades. Any additional work on completeness should consider the effects of rapid, local population changes during the Nation\u27s westward expansion