Seniority

Courts & Law What does the junior Supreme Court justice do? Kagan tells Gorsuch it starts in the kitchen By Robert Barnes April 9 at 6:29 PM ____________________________________________________ SENIORITY 'The Supreme Court is a place that runs on seniority' according to the the Justices --and they should know , but take it from me--though I'm hardly an authority-- in the outside world -- this is rarely so. Young women, of course, know this all too well and panic at the sight of a wrinkle or hair turning gray often spending fortunes on whatever others may sell to postpone their senescence for another day While politicians, too, at least as clever , will do almost anything to hang on to power but even they can not rule forever and eventually too must have their final hour. Ah, that the rest of us could just grow old without our being either bought or sold ! HzL, 3/10/17 ________________________________________ No one could have known it at the time, but at the end of last summer, Justice Elena Kagan gave Neil M. Gorsuch a face-to-face tutorial on what it means to be the Supreme Court’s newest justice. It starts in the kitchen. “I’ve been on the cafeteria committee for six years. (Justice) Steve Breyer was on the cafeteria committee for 13 years,” Kagan said at a Colorado event where she was being interviewed by Gorsuch and Timothy M. Tymkovich, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. [Trump picks Colorado appeals court judge for Supreme Court] Gorsuch and Tymkovich both were on President Trump’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees at the time, and it just so happened that they asked what it was like to be the most junior justice. Kagan is a storyteller, and knows this is a topic that audiences usually eat up, so she played it for all it was worth. The junior justice has three unique responsibilities, she said. But in recounting them, she always starts with the fact that the newest justice is assigned to cafeteria duty and keeps it until the next justice is confirmed. [Gorsuch’s impact might be felt immediately] “I think this is a way to kind of humble people,” she said during the “fireside chat” at the elegant Broadmoor resort in Colorado Springs. “You think you’re kind of hot stuff. You’re an important person. You’ve just been confirmed to the United States Supreme Court. “And now you are going to monthly cafeteria committee meetings where literally the agenda is what happened to the good recipe for the chocolate chip cookies.” The justices eat lunch together on the days when they hear oral arguments, Kagan explained. “Somebody will say, ‘Who’s our representative to the cafeteria committee again?’ Like they don’t know, right? And then they’ll say, ‘This soup is very salty.’ And I’m like supposed to go fix it myself?” You might guess it was not the first time Kagan has told the story. But, as she says, she’s worried about the cookies and the soup since 2010--her biggest contribution has been to install a frozen yogurt machine--so who would begrudge her?