Tacit Powers and Missing the Point

The supreme court succession now seems to be signed and sealed, but I've got a couple of questions that are unresolved. First, why did Jusitice Souter resign? The standard answer seems to be that he hated D.C., he wanted to go back to New Hampshire (click your heels three times), and the desire to be replaced by someone with a liberal slant (mission accomplished), which was likely while Obama is in office. This leads me to the second question: is there any precedent for strategic resignations in the supreme court? As far as I can tell, Art. 3 of the American constitution does not include influencing the future composition or decisions of the court as one of its powers. On the contrary, it seems to expect justices to serve until they are no longer able or invalidate themselves with bad behaviour. That they would manage their tenure strategically seems to be a blindspot.

Strategic resignation is not a new phenomenon in general. There are plenty of examples of national leaders resigning with the ground laid for particular heirs, as in Uzbekistan, Egypt, or N. Korea. This happens all the time, and it was probably even more common when royal dynasties were still going concerns, but those decisions tend to be (at least de facto) extra-constitutional. Is this a regular occurrence for the US supreme court, and does it have any legal/constitutional backing?

The second burr in my saddle is the resolution of Ulla Schmidt's vacation plans. The German health minister got in trouble recently for flying to Spain, having her chauffeur drive her official, armoured Mercedes to meet her in Spain, and then looking foolish when the car got stolen. She has been cleared of wrongdoing, because it is legal for ministers to use their official cars for private purposes, as long as they pay tax on the private use. Her party's leader has now reinstated her place in the "competence team" (read, shadow cabinet) for the barely noticeable election campaign.

I'm still outraged and want blood! Don't get me wrong, I think it's reasonable for ministers to use their cars for private purposes. If I had one provided, I wouldn't be able to justify having a private car too, and I would just use the one. I also think that the rules are fine: the minister is responsible for compensating the taxpayer for private use. Fair enough. The source of my outrage is the environmental impact of flying and having a car and driver meet you there. According to this calculator, I reckon her flying to Spain (assuming she flew alone and on a normal commercial carrier) generated 400 kg of CO2 emissions. Fine. It's too far to bike, and I probably would have flown myself.

Her car, though, is an armoured S-class Mercedes. According to this site, a late model S-class will get 12.7 L/100km (18.5 mpg). This, however, doesn't account for the extra weight of the armour, which is about 20%, so let's call it an even 15 l/100km, which is probably generous. Let's say the drive was 5200 km, which is the distance from Berlin to Alicante (return); that gives us a return trip gas consumption of 862 litres (not including the weight of the chauffeur, his kid, and the luggage). Just driving there and back cost 1996 kg of CO2. So, even though Ms. Schmidt's choice to use her car was legal, it unnecessarily released 2 tons of carbon dioxide. And Germany is supposed to be able to brow beat emerging countries and the Yanks into cutting their emissions at Copenhagen later this year? With what credibility? What ever happened to leading by example?

She may not have acted illegally, but she immorally polluted the environment, which belongs to all of us. I'm f*ck!ng fuming, but not as much as Ms. Schmidt's car, which I helped pay for in the first place.