Why Judges Having A “Judicial Philosophy” Is Actually A Bad Thing

During the Senate hearing for Supreme Court nomination Ketanji Brown Jackson, she was asked a number of times about her “judicial philosophy.” When asked exactly what that meant by Senator Dick Durbin, Jackson said the following:

Over the course of my almost decade on the bench, I have developed a methodology that I use in order to ensure that I am ruling impartially and that I am adhering to the limits on my judicial authority.

Jackson also told Senator Amy Klobuchar that her judicial philosophy can be summed up as the desire:

to approach all cases with professional integrity, meaning strict adherence to the rule of law, keeping an open mind, and deciding each issue in a transparent, straightforward manner, without bias or any preconceived notion of how the matter is going to turn out.

Brown has also summed this up through saying that she does not “judicial philosophy,” but she does have a “judicial methodology.”

These answers — nearly identical to the “call balls and strikes,” answers Chief Justice John Roberts gave in 2005 — angered many in the ruling class, who wanted to turn Jackson’s hearing into a battle of ideology in hopes of rallying up their bases for the midterms. Jackson handled the smears that she was soft on…