Theo Lippman Jr.: Court seating is complicated

BALTIMORE -Geography is destiny, as Freud said, or was that Rand & McNally? Anyway, everybody’s paying a lot of attention to the fact that President Reagan has nominated a woman to the Supreme Court and overlooking the fact that he has nominated an Arizonan, which is also significant. If she is confirmed, Sandra O’Connor will be only the eighth justice from west of the 100th meridian, which is where the West begins. Two of the others are still on the court – Rehnquist of Arizona and White of Colorado – so the contemporary court is a third Western, for the first time. Geography was an important criteria in selecting the early justices. George Washington picked half from the North and half from the South. From 1789 till 1932 there was a “New England seat.” There was a “New York seat” from 1806 till 1890. There was a “Maryland-Virginia seat” from 1789 until lhe Civil War. In this century, geography has been less honored. There have been some extreme imbalances. On the famous “nine old men” court that President Franklin D. Roosevelt attacked in 1937, three of the nine justices had been New York City lawyers, a fourth was from Massachusetts, a fifth from Pennsylvania. The Nine Old Men were 61, 64, 66, 70, 74, 74, 75, 77 and 80. Within a year after FDR’s attack on them, four had retired and one died. Today’s eight justices are 56, 60, 64, 72, 73, 73, 73 and 75. Ronald Reagan may get to name two or three more justices. The person second on the list O’Connor was first on was J . Clifford