symmetry.

AD

AD

Further, the fact that Srinivasan is Hindu would add religious diversity to a bench populated solely by Catholic or Jewish justices for the past six years, and would follow a long presidential tradition of placing religious minorities on the Supreme Court long before that religion was represented in high elected office. Srinivasan more than meets the standard of exceptional merit, with his Stanford degrees and professional experience. And the Republican-controlled Senate approved him unanimously when Obama nominated him for the D.C. Circuit, a Supreme Court proving ground, in 2013.

Although Benjamin Harrison was the most recent lame duck to place a justice on the Supreme Court, five other presidents (Hayes, Tyler, Van Buren, Jackson and Adams) did so as well. All but Jackson, who named a justice on thelast full day of his two terms, had been defeated or had withdrawn from the election. Adams’s last-minute appointment of his Secretary of State John Marshall to chief justice, a parting Federalist slap at the Jeffersonians, makes today’s partisan rows look tame by comparison. “That gloomy malignity,” as Thomas Jefferson inaccurately described Marshall, would preside over the court for 34 years, long after the Federalist Party faded from the scene. The Supreme Court labels him the “Great Chief Justice” for his masterful leadership and foundational interpretations of the Constitution.

One-third of U.S. presidents appointed Supreme Court justices during election years

AD

AD

Aside from genuine lame ducks, one-third of U.S. presidents appointed justices during presidential election years. A handful were, like Obama, not running for reelection. George Washington, who established precedents that