JUDGE Ruth Ginsburg is an honorable and sincere woman who has demonstrated considerable intellectual energy and scholarship on and off the federal bench. Her nomination to the United States Supreme Court is likely to be quickly confirmed by the Senate in an overwhelmingly bipartisan manner. Ruth Ginsburg may not be the kind of candidate whom conservatives would appoint to the bench as one of their own, but she is also not the kind of candidate whom the Friends of Hillary would appoint as one of their own. While the “moderation” of her positions has been considerably overstated in the media, Judge Ginsburg nevertheless is a responsible jurist who has proved able to distinguish between the role of the advocate and that of the judge.
Does all this mean that conservatives have little interest in the Judiciary Committee hearings on Judge Ginsburg’s nomination? I would submit that this is not the case. In one sense, conservatives are well served by the nomination of a person such as Judge Ginsburg, who is neither radical in her outlook nor likely to suffer from grievous character flaws of the “gotcha” variety. Instead of attempting to impugn the nominee’s integrity, something that has regrettably dominated the confirmation process in recent years, Committee conservatives should engage in some intelligent constitutional inquiry. Such inquiry would be designed to inform the public about critical choices the Court will be making, which will determine how their Constitution looks in the year 2000—and how Justice Ginsburg would approach them.
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