Why President Obama should quickly nominate an Asian American to the US Supreme Court
PRESIDENT Obama, as a result of the unexpected death of US Supreme Court Justice Antonio Scalia, has an opportunity to appoint the first Asian American to the US Supreme Court in its more than 225 year history. As the late Justice Scalia has frequently stated, the court needs more diversity.
In America’s history 112 justices have been appointed and confirmed. But despite more than 20 million Asian Americans, and the projections of the Census Bureau that the Asian American population will at least double in the next generation, no Asian American appointees have ever been made.
We believe that this decision to appoint an Asian American should not be political since the very conservative Justice Scalia has always raised the issue of lack of Supreme Court diversity. Many of us, including the authors of this article, disagree on what elements are crucial in President Obama’s appointment process. Therefore, we have sent to the President on February 16th, three names of Asian Americans who are 50 or under who cover the spectrum of political opinions from those probably approved by Senator Cruz to those probably approved by liberal governors such as Governor Brown. This includes California Supreme Court Justice Gordon Liu, who President Obama previously nominated to be a 9th Circuit Judge and is presently a brilliant scholarly progressive on the California Supreme Court. Somewhere in the middle, we have mentioned Jacqueline Nguyen, a 9th Circuit (Western US) Justice. Farther to the right, we have mentioned a former associate of Senator Ted Cruz, Sri Srinavasan. We also believe there are at least a dozen other well qualified and scholarly Asian American judges in the mix.
The obvious political advantage to President Obama of nominating an Asian American is that it is likely to further unify the Asian American vote in favor of future presidential candidates. It also has the advantage of including the perspective of a community that potentially, within a generation, will have at least eight times the voting power of the entire Jewish community (Presently, three of the nine members of the US Supreme Court are Jewish.)
For Republicans, the advantage of such an appointment should they agree to hold hearings and support the nominee is that they will prove to the Asian American community that the Asian Americans are a key element in America’s future progress. It is our hope and expectation that the Republican leadership will join with the President in supporting the late Justice Scalia’s commitment to and concerns about the lack of diversity throughout the 225 year history of the US Supreme Court.
Our letter to the President will be followed, if possible, by meetings with both the Republican leadership and the President when the National Asian American Coalition and its allies from the Black and Latino churches and chambers of commerce are in Washington D.C during the week of March 1st.
It is also our hope that the leading Republican and Democratic candidates, including Clinton, Sanders, Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Bush and Kasich will begin to speak out on the need for the prompt confirmation of a fully qualified Asian American justice. As many Asian American leaders have often said, the US Supreme Court is far stronger by having three women, an African American and a Latino among the nine justices.
