An interesting brief essay on how the general composition of the Supreme Court has changed over the past 100 years. The experiences and backgrounds of past judges were more varied and more likely to have legislative experience.

There undoubtedly are many reasons for this phenomenon – a post-Bork confirmation process that favors nominees with no “paper trail”; interest groups in both parties that demand nominees likely to be “dependable” votes in certain kinds of cases; and the widespread impression – fostered by the ascendant legal ideology – that judging is a technical exercise, for which the essential credential is expertise in the legal academy, as a judge, or the equivalent.