What do you think they wear under those robes? It must be nice knowing that you will get to wear a long black robe at work that day. I would dress real casual, maybe a T-shirt and shorts depending on the weather, but that’s me. Maybe you’d go a little more risqué. I’m sure they each put their own spin on it, as is their right to do. And who am I to question them? They are the nine justices of the United States Supreme Court, and they can do as they damn well please!
Whatever they decide to wear underneath, once the robes are on, these six men and three women (currently) serve as the final check on laws passed by our federal and sometimes state governments. The Court has faced some difficult quandaries in the past and this year’s cases were no different. This judicial season has now ended and it’s official: gay marriage is in, Obamacare is here to stay, and states are free to kill death row inmates with whatever drug cocktails they can dream up.
The high-profile nature of these cases has drawn more attention to the nine Justices of the Supreme Court than I can remember in recent times. People want to know who these nine super judges are and what makes them tick. Luckily for you, I went to law school and actually had to read some of their opinions and have gleaned a bit of insight into who at least half of these people are. For the rest of them, I’m going to follow the time honored American tradition of relaying some things I remember seeing and also making some of it up. You get to decide what’s real! It’s like a fun game!
Our first justice is also the newest appointee to the court. Elena Kagan used to rep Obama in front of the Supreme Court as the solicitor general before becoming a justice. Now she recuses herself from all the cases she worked on before, so who knows how she feels? She looks like your mom if your mom is an older white lady with short hair.
Sonia Sotomayor is the slightly more supreme than Kagan as she was around for about a year before Kagan joined the party. Sotomayor once threw the opening pitch at a Major League Baseball game and is often derided as a “spicy Latina” by Fox News.
Clarence Thomas also likes sports. He thinks that since the majority of players in the NBA are African American, racism must no longer exist. That’s probably why he doesn’t like affirmative action either. He is only the second African American to ever serve on the Supreme Court. What he does like is harassing women and drinking Cokes with pubes in them. From watching him in court, you wouldn’t know any of this because he barely says anything. In fact he hasn’t asked a question in court in about eight years!
At the end of the day, you don’t need to know much about Thomas because he will invariably go the same way as his boy, Antonin Scalia. Scalia is so conservative that he literally will bust out an old ass dictionary to figure out what the framers of the Constitution meant when they wrote the law of the land. He is what is sometimes called an originalist, which I read as “asshole.” His m.o. is to tear people down to make them feel stupid or to call them names when things don’t go his way. Yes he can be funny sometimes, but he’s still an asshole.
Samuel Alito really thinks corporations are people and should get to spend whatever they want on elections. When the President told the country that was wrong at a State of the Union, Alito mouthed, “Not true,” in the President’s face. He looks really uptight, almost crotchety.
John Roberts is the most supreme of all of the justices. He isn’t any better and hasn’t been there longer than the rest of the bunch, but George W. Bush put him in charge for life, so deal with it. Roberts has the title of Chief Justice, which means he is allowed to draw penises on people’s faces when they pass out. He looks like some sort of aged Ken doll. He latches onto strange things in cases which leads him to unexpected results.
Like Roberts, Anthony Kennedy is hard to figure out. He will do something amazing like write the opinion legalizing gay marriage, but also do something stupid like write the Citizens United decision that created this dark-money election gravy train. He used to (and still occasionally does) teach for McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento. He is not related to those other Kennedys that you are thinking about.
Stephen Breyer sacrificed a live goat on a homemade alter in the chamber of the Supreme Court shortly after he was appointed. That gave him the power to keep Clarence Thomas quiet for the past eight years.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg ignores all of these other idiots’ bullshit and does her own thing. That usually entails applying the law in a reasonable and consistent way. They don’t call her the Notorious RBG for nothing. She even makes the neck doily look cool. Ruth is the truth!
These nine people try to keep this ship called America afloat when they aren’t trying to sink it to the bottom of the sea. It’s a difficult balancing act, but, as any follower of the Supreme Court knows, these motherfuckers love their balancing tests. For their trouble, they are given a generous salary, lifetime employment, personal security, a chair built to their specifications and, I’m guessing, one of the finest black robes to ever touch human flesh.
-Bocephus Chigger
bocephus@submergemag.com
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