Justice Clint Bolick, An Origin Story

When Arizona Governor Doug Ducey appointed the noted libertarian lawyer Clint Bolick to the Arizona Supreme Court in 2016, the left freaked out (so what else is new), calling his appointment "chilling." The Center for American Progress gasped, "Mr. Bolick has spent the last quarter century working — at times quite successfully — to make the law more friendly to anti-government conservatives. Thanks to an appointment, announced Wednesday by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R), Bolick will now bring this agenda to his state’s supreme court." That's all the endorsement I need!

Actually I've known Clint (er . . . that's Justice Bolick to you buddy!) for more than 30 years, and caught up with him recently in person for the first time in a long while. Which could only mean one thing: we have to do a podcast! And so here it is.

Among other highlights of Justice Bolick's career is co-founding the Institute for Justice (along with Chip Mellor, a previous podcast guest for an "origin story" conversation), advocating for and defending school choice in court, and, in a deed that deserves more recollection, helping to scuttle President Clinton's nomination of Lani Guinier to head the civil rights division of the Justice Department in 1993. Her radical views that Clinton found unacceptable then are, of course, mainstream Democratic Party views today. The New York Times obituary of Guinier a few month ago included this passage:

“Clinton has not had to expend any political capital on the issue of quotas,” Clint Bolick, a conservative lawyer and activist who helped lead the charge against her, told The New York Times in 1993, “and with her, we believe we could inflict a heavy political cost.”

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the family, Justice Bolick's better half, State Rep. Shawnna Bolick, is a candidate to be Arizona's next Secretary of State. For our Arizona readers and listeners concerned about election integrity, here's your candidate!