From Supreme Court to Food Court: Catering to New Justices

Justice Neil Gorsuch was appointed to the Supreme Court because of his conservative credentials. Now, as the newest member of the Court, he must apply his legal bonafides to another arena: the Supreme Food Court or SFCOTUS.

Being inducted into the nation’s top judicial body for a lifetime gig could, quite organically, inflate one’s ego. So to bake a sense of humility into newcomers, the junior-ranking justice must perform a plethora of hazing-ritual tasks, including serving on the committee that oversees the Court’s cafeteria.

"It's a way of bringing them back down to earth after the excitement of confirmation and appointment," Chief Justice John Roberts told an audience in 2011, after Elena Kagan’s appointment.

Kagan offered no dissenting opinion.

"You think you’re kind of hot stuff. You’re an important person. You’ve just been confirmed to the United States Supreme Court," Kagan said during a “fireside chat” at the Broadmoor resort in Colorado Springs.

"And now you are going to monthly cafeteria committee meetings where literally the agenda is what happened to the good recipe for the chocolate chip cookies."

Kagan has gone on record saying her greatest SFCOTUS accomplishment was introducing a frozen-yogurt machine.

Unlike the Justices’ deliberations, the 185-seat canteen is always open to the public. It’s located on the building’s ground floor, and the eatery’s proceeds go towards subsidizing staff-enrichment activities like holiday parties, cookouts and Supreme Court night at the Washington Nationals ballpark. Employees enjoy a 20% discount.

Gorusch may experience some jurisprudential whiplash moving between the Court and the canteen below: the cafeteria committee operates by consensus, and dissents are not noted. There are no Chief Supreme Food Court Justices, no split (pea soup) decisions, and no debates as to whether the food court represents our Founding Fathers’ true intentions

(The late Justice Antonin Scalia never weighed in on the constitutionality of SFCOTUS, but he probably meant to say something like, "I am not sure that the Framers of the Constitution, when writing that efficacious document, had in their mind that age-old jurisprudential edict, for which their years of study in the law have so well prepared them: they spoke of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—they said nothing, so far as I can tell, of a remission on tater tots.")

"We’re all equal when we’re having lunch," Justice Samuel Alito told the Wall Street Journal.

Still, as with any Court decision, there’s always the possibility of landing in hot water. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female to serve on the Court, caused an uproar when she unilaterally chose a new cafeteria food service company: several committee members promptly resigned.

For now, Gorsuch has remained quiet on the matter and it is unclear how his legal chops will impact prospective SFCOTUS cases such as Chicken v. Fish, Ketchup v. Mustard or Vegetarian v. Vegan.

Should Justice Gorsuch be liberal or conservative with second helpings? Should I have tried harder to work in Hash Brown v. The Board Of Education? Use the Take Action button to tell your reps what you think and/or comment with better puns below.

--Josh Herman

(Photo Credits: Spatula: Evan-Amos / Creative Commons; Gavel: Blogtrepreneur via Flickr / Creative Commons)