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On January 28, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson nominated the profitable Boston lawyer Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Courtroom. Though Brandeis is a largely revered determine in the present day, his battle to get a seat on the Courtroom was ugly and hard-fought.
By 1916, Brandeis had turn out to be one of the crucial outstanding attorneys within the nation and a trusted Wilson ally. It was Brandies who got here up with the “Brandeis Transient,” a Supreme Courtroom argument nonetheless used in the present day that evaluates circumstances utilizing knowledgeable testimony together with financial and social proof, in addition to authorized precedents.
In 1907, Brandeis agreed to signify Florence Kelley and Josephine Goldmark (his sister-in-law) in a case concerning the constitutionality of limiting labor hours for feminine laundry employees. He gained his case in entrance of the Supreme Courtroom by citing non-legal knowledge in a 113-page transient.
Hyperlink: Learn The Unique Brandeis Transient
9 years later, Brandeis accepted Wilson’s nomination to the Courtroom, understanding it might be a troublesome battle. Not solely was Brandeis related to Wilson’s progressive beliefs that public coverage shouldn’t be pushed by “large enterprise,” Brandeis was additionally Jewish in an period when that truth alone might marshal appreciable opposition to his nomination to the Supreme Courtroom.
“First, he was the primary Jew ever to be nominated for the courtroom, and there was blatant anti-Semitism there,” historian and professor Lucas Powe instructed NPR in a 2009 interview. Powe additionally mentioned that Brandeis’ choice to shift from a lawyer who defended companies to at least one who fought towards them brought on considerations on Wall Road.
The Wall Road Journal and New York Occasions led the press opposition to Brandeis, calling him a “radical.” Among the many Republicans who opposed his nomination have been Taft, Henry Cabot Lodge and Elihu Root. Taft referred to as the Brandeis nomination “an evil and a shame.” Six former presidents of the American Bar Affiliation additionally opposed Brandeis.
In response to the outcry, the Senate held the first-ever Judiciary Listening to on a Supreme Courtroom nomination.
Throughout the nomination battle, Brandies wrote his pal, the authorized scholar and Harvard Regulation College dean, Roscoe Pound, concerning the uproar over his nomination.
“I doubted very a lot whether or not I ought to simply accept, however the opposition has eliminated my doubts,” Brandeis mentioned in February 1916.
The nomination course of took 4 months, and whereas Brandeis wasn’t required to attend the hearings, it set a precedent. Ultimately, the Senate accredited Brandeis by a 47 to 22 vote.
Brandeis stayed on the courtroom from June 5, 1916, till his retirement on February 13, 1939.
In Could 1916, the New York Occasions issued a stinging editorial concerning the impending affirmation of Brandeis.
“The Supreme Courtroom, by its very nature, have to be a conservative physique; it’s the conservator of our establishments, it protects the folks towards the errors of their legislative servants, it’s the defender of the Structure itself. To position upon the Supreme Bench judges who maintain a distinct view of the operate of the courtroom, to supplant conservatism by radicalism, could be to undo the work of John Marshall and strip the Structure of its defenses,” it mentioned.
However upon Brandeis’ retirement in 1939, the Occasions did an about-face on Brandeis.
“The retirement of Justice Brandeis takes from the bench of the Supreme Courtroom one of many nice judges of our instances,” it mentioned, lauding Brandeis as a Justice who “has regarded the Structure as no iron straitjacket, however a garment that should match every era.”
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