The theater of Supreme Court judicial nominations became even more than ever an exercise of partisan political purposes yesterday and undoubtedly continues today.  But I want to point out the obvious in this:  that these individuals are not acting in the best interest of the country per se, and certainly not according to their constituents’ interest, but rather they are optimizing their own interests.

The Public Choice school of economics makes the not unreasonable case that individuals serve their own self-interest (however broadly conceived), not simply that they act in the public interest.  Prior to this revolution (rational choice theory applied to politics), the standard view was that agents in the public sector are trying to maximize social welfare.  This public interest view, which could almost always be shown to be false via anecdotes, came increasingly under attack by solid empirical evidence in the latter half of the 20th century, such that almost no one naively believes it to be a sufficient way to explain what we see happening in the public sector.

So the Kavanaugh nomination is yet another anecdote illustrating the death of the public interest model.  Red state democrats are under pressure to confirm Mr. Kavanaugh, yet they are under pressure from their party to say no.  The open secret is that the Democratic strategy is to try to find some way to damage Mr. Kavanaugh such that they could pick off one Republican, and then the red-state Democrats would take their chances by opposing a relatively popular nominee to secure his defeat.  Then, the hope goes, if we get a blue wave in November, we can force Mr. Trump to nominate a more centrist nominee.  But if neither Susan Collins or Lisa Murkowski crack, and the nominee is going to be confirmed, then these red state democrats will be given a pass by Mr. Schumer to vote for his confirmation and not alienate their voters.  So the strategy is clear:  defy the will of a majority of our constituents, but only if that means we can accomplish our strategic objective of a more moderate justice.  Yet a reasonable public interest view of politics would have an alignment between the voters desires and the Senators votes.  The fact that they would vote against the desires of their home state constituents, but only if it could result in the defeat of the nominee, is totally consistent with a Public Choice view of the world, and inconsistent with the public interest model.  The Public Choice view posits just such a view of political trade-offs as being how decisions will be made.  Just as with economic analysis of markets, a politician will compare the benefits of their course of action with the potential costs, as they subjectively perceive them.  It doesn’t make them better or worse–it just makes them human, like the rest of us.

As Christians, we are not surprised that people in all sectors of life (public and private) act in their own self-interest.  There is a reason why the Apostle Paul has to admonish us in the letter to the Philippians that we should not only look out for own interests but also the interests of others.  Our natural fleshly focus is on ourselves and our benefit, not on others.  We understand that individuals are created in the image of God, and yet are fallen.  We find that the same people that act nobly in some contexts act basely in others.  Abraham was a courageous hero in chasing after Lot, but was craven in failing to acknowledge Sarah as his wife.  David was a hero and a man after God’s own heart, and yet also a murderer.  People don’t become saints in the public sector and sinners in the private sector (or vice versa).  In a fallen world, we expect people to have ideals that they don’t always live up to, in no matter where they work.