The Court’s Distinction
Louis Menand, in his helpful review of the retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s new book, claims that “what makes the Court different from other political actors is stare decisis”—that is, its tradition of respecting earlier decisions (Books, April 15th). But several other parts of the government often do the same thing; what lawyers call stare decisis is merely a formalization of a natural tendency in organizational decision-making.
What truly distinguishes the Supreme Court from most other political institutions is something that Menand does not mention: life tenure. Life tenure enables the Justices to take the long view far more than is possible for a President or a member of Congress. (Some government agencies—the Navy, for example—are forced by their mission to make longer-term plans, but they are subject to direct political control in a way that the Supreme Court is not.) The Court’s long view was nicely illustrated in its recent decision on whether the Fourteenth Amendment barred Donald Trump from the national ballot. If you were to look only at the language of the amendment—and especially if you allowed partisan bias to affect your judgment—it would be easy to see Colorado’s decision as unassailable. Yet all nine Justices disagreed. To their credit, none of the liberal Justices seized on the case as an opportunity to send a message to the country that an insurrectionist must not be allowed to become President. Instead, they agreed with the conservatives that such a decision might create chaos in elections that will be held long after Trump is history.
Jack Harllee
Washington, D.C.
Wasted Chances
Eric Lach’s article about Jessica Tisch, New York City’s sanitation commissioner, shows clearly that Tisch doesn’t care about reducing waste—only about hiding it (“Trash, Trash Revolution,” April 15th). That is a shame, given that the city’s waste-containerization program came about through discussions about zero-waste goals.
Between 2016 and 2017, I led a series of talks at the Center for Architecture, in New York; among the participants were members of the Department of Sanitation. These talks produced a set of guidelines for how the city could reduce waste while improving operations and streetscapes. (I was briefly quoted in Lach’s piece.) Waste containerization, done right, should incentivize waste reduction and the separation of recyclable and compostable waste, thus helping the city meet its climate goals and improve residents’ quality of life. It is a pity that Eric Adams’s administration has not taken an approach that prioritizes these aims. What we need is a holistic design solution; Tisch’s plan will just lead to sidewalks lined with small bins, and streets lined with large ones.
Clare Miflin
Executive Director
Center for Zero Waste Design
Brooklyn, N.Y.
I found the last sentences of Lach’s profile to be very troubling. Tisch “didn’t think it was her job to reduce garbage—just to remove it.” This attitude displays the carelessness of privileged individuals like Tisch—who, Lach notes, is an heiress from an extremely wealthy family—who can afford to live far away from landfills and incinerators. It also shows why Americans lead the way in consuming resources for our convenience, blithely exporting the end products to other states and countries. A genuine reckoning with trash should require us to reduce our output. Under Tisch, wastescapes that resemble the maligned Fresh Kills landfill grow every day. These mountains of trash will be part of the record that we leave behind for future generations to ponder.
Heidi Scott
University Park, Md.
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