No More Souters

More Perfect

WNYC Studios

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4.8 • 14.7K Ratings

🗓️ 13 July 2023

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

David Souter is one the most private, low-profile justices ever to have served on the Supreme Court. He rarely gives interviews or speeches. Yet his tenure was anything but low profile. Deemed a “home run” nominee by Republicans, Souter defied partisan expectations on the bench and ultimately ceded his seat to a Democratic president.

In this episode, the story of how “No More Souters” became a rallying cry for Republicans and inspired a backlash that would change the Court forever.

Voices in the episode include:

• Ashley Lopez — NPR political correspondent

• Anna Sale — host of WNYC Studios' Death, Sex & Money podcast

• Tinsley Yarbrough — author and former political science professor at East Carolina University

• Heather Gerken — Dean of Yale Law School and former Justice Souter clerk

• Kermit Roosevelt III — professor at University of Pennsylvania School of Law and former Justice Souter clerk

• Judge Peter Rubin — Associate Justice on Massachusetts Appeals Court and former Justice Souter clerk

• Governor John H. Sununu — former governor of New Hampshire and President George H.W. Bush’s Chief of Staff

Learn more:

• 1992: Planned Parenthood v. Casey

• 1992: Lee v. Weisman

• 2000: Bush v. Gore

• 2009: Citizens United v. FEC

Shadow dockets, term limits, amicus briefs — what puzzles you about the Supreme Court? What stories are you curious about? We want to answer your questions in our next season. Click here to leave us a voice memo.

Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project by Justia and the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School.

Support for More Perfect is provided in part by The Smart Family Fund.

Follow us on Instagram, Threads and Facebook @moreperfectpodcast, and Twitter @moreperfect.

Transcript

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0:00.0	So where do we start?
0:20.1	Why don't you tell me who you are and what you do?
0:23.5	Okay, so my name is Ashley Lopez and I'm a political correspondent for NPR.
0:29.7	You are here today.
0:31.2	Yeah, because of your, do we want to call it an obsession?
0:36.2	You know what?
0:37.2	I guess obsession is maybe a little bit too much, but it's not far.
0:42.9	It's not far.
0:43.9	I've just been very intrigued for many years by David Souter.
0:49.2	Justice David Souter has informed the White House he will retire at the end of a Supreme
0:53.0	Court term in June.
0:54.9	Justice David Souter retired in 2009 when Barack Obama was president.
1:00.7	First, I thought he was interesting because he was appointed by a Republican and was
1:06.0	seating his seat to a Democratic president.
1:08.8	That's a kind of a weird thing.
1:10.8	Either you die in the seat or you hand it over to the party that put you into the seat.
1:15.6	Souter is perhaps best known as one of the most surprising justices to hold the office.
1:20.6	But the thing that stuck out to me was just like how everyone talked about David Souter.
1:24.4	The reclusive justice stay hid.
1:26.4	Notoriously, camera shy.
1:28.0	David Souter speaks in public rarely now.
1:30.0	The shy reclusive bachelor from the other side of the country in New Hampshire.
	...

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