JOHN PAUL STEVENS

Jaunty in bow tie

Our nonagenarian

Champions reason.

Justice John Paul Stevens joined the

Supreme Court in 1975, appointed by

then-President Gerald Ford. Although

he considers himself a "judicial conservative" 

JPS seems to have taken up the mantle of 

liberal lion, given the unfortunate rightward

swing the court has taken. He recently wrote a

90-page dissent following the court's 

5-4 decision to allow corporations/unions

to bankroll political candidates and thus

even more greatly influence the outcome

of elections. JPS turns 90 in April.  Here's

just a tidbit of his intelligent dissent:

At 

bottom, the Court’s opinion is thus a rejection of the com­ 

mon sense of the American people, who have recognized a 

need to prevent corporations from undermining self­ 

government since the founding, and who have fought 

against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate 

electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt.  It is a 

strange time to repudiate that common sense.  While 

American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority 

of this Court would have thought its flaws included a 

dearth of corporate money in politics.