Dan Coats Channels Roman Hruska

Jacob Sullum | October 10, 2005

Last week Dan Coats, the former Republican senator from Indiana who is supposedly helping Harriet Miers get confirmed, told CNN, "If great intellectual powerhouse is a qualification to be a member of the court and represent the American people and the wishes of the American people and to interpret the Constitution, then I think we have a court so skewed on the intellectual side that we may not be getting representation of America as a whole." As Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) noted, the quote is reminiscent of Sen. Roman Hruska's oft-quoted defense of failed Nixon Supreme Court nominee G. Harrold Carswell: "Even if he is mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance?"