Chief Justice nominees

[RJLipkin at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/1/2005 2:41:58 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
crossf at mail.utexas.edu writes:

I don't  disagree with the need for further study.
But every topic wants further  study.  And yet we have opinions based on the 
information  available.

For example, Prof Lipkin has a suspicion that non-voters are  marginalized 
liberals.  In fact, there is considerable political science  survey data on 
non-voters, and historically they are not more liberal than  voters.  And there's 
data on other questions, such as reinvigorating  unions.  From Gallup:


"Would you, personally, like to see labor unions in the United  States have 
more influence than they have today, the same amount as today, or  less 
influence than they have today?"
% 
More 30 
Same 36 
Less 32 
No opinion 2
        My point was not  that the issue "wants further study," of course it 
does; but that  certitude concerning the results is unwarranted for important  
conceptual, normative, and empirical reasons.
 
        My view permits me to  accept completed studies as evidence against 
my view, but these studies do not  require my accepting them as dispositive 
evidence.  Only if I were  convinced that a study took seriously the above 
problems would I count  it as dispositive.
 
        Finally, am I incorrect in  stating that the above survey on unions 
shows that non-voters (who are these?  their wealth? and so forth) want unions 
to have the same or more influence than  they do today at a count of 2-1?  I 
doubt that anything close to that would  be true of the voting public. If so, 
the above study clearly shows that  non-voters support the influence of unions 
at a much greater rate than  voters.
 
Bobby


 
Robert Justin  Lipkin
Professor of Law
Widener University School of  Law
Delaware
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