The Supreme Court Battle Begins
By Joe Mariani (07/18/05)
Finally, the long-awaited battle on Capitol Hill is about to begin. If you thought the fights over President Bush's appellate court nominees were full of vitriolic mud-slinging, just wait until he names his choice to succeed Sandra Day O'Connor in his first Supreme Court nomination. As the old saying goes, "you ain't seen nothin' yet."
Frankly, I'm happy to see this Supreme Court change at last. They've made some of the worst decisions since the Dred Scott case of 1857, in which the Court returned a free man to and upheld slavery, while denying citizenship to black Americans. In the last few years alone, this court has granted extensive legal rights to terrorists and illegal enemy combatants during a war while discovering a new "right to gay sex" hidden somewhere in the Constitution. They have made random and confusing decisions regarding our right to religious freedom, and admitted to basing decisions on foreign court rulings rather than our own Constitution. They only cite foreign decisions that agree with their predetermined positions, of course, so that's alright. At least I hope we won't be following Muslim shar'ia laws -- which include stoning adulterers, including rape victims -- anytime soon. The worst decision yet made by this court was to change the meaning of "public use" in the 5th Amendment from "something used by the public" to "something that might generate more money for the government." This latest decision, Kelo v. New London, allows your local government to seize your home if Wal-Mart or Home Depot wants to build a new store on the spot... or even if someone merely wants to build a larger house that could bring in more tax revenue.
During his 2000 and 2004 campaigns, President Bush promised to fill any vacancies on the Supreme Court with justices who understand and accept their proper role in the government under the Constitution. Someone like Miguel Estrada, for example, whose 2001 nomination to the federal bench was blocked by Democrats until he finally withdrew his name from consideration over two years later, would make an excellent Supreme Court justice. Democrats saw Estrada as "especially dangerous" because "he is Latino," as one of several memos setting forth the Democrat strategy to block Bush's nominations from coming to a vote pointed out. Whether they're good judges who would follow the Constitution doesn't matter -- anyone nominated by President Bush is likely to suffer attacks on their character and intelligence. Remember Senator Ted Kennedy's characterisation of Bush's judicial nominees in 2003 as "Neanderthals?" That was mild compared to the upcoming fight.
Any move towards originalism fills Liberals with panic. Whenever elements of their agenda are put to a proper vote by the people, they fail. Gay "marriage," for example, has never been accepted by the people when put to a vote -- not even in bluer-than-blue states like Oregon. In fact, a gay "marriage" ban was on the ballot in Oregon and 10 other states for the 2004 election, and passed in every single one. Californians passed Proposition 22, a similar ban, by 61% to 39% in 2000. In Massachusetts, on the other hand, the legislature voted to put a gay "marriage" ban on the ballot in November 2006... and the MA Supreme Court promptly ruled that it must be legal until then. The only way Liberals can get this or any of their unpopular programs enshrined into law is to have them forced on the public by the judiciary. The problem is that the 10th Amendment to the Constitution specifically states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." The Supreme Court has repeatedly usurped the powers of the states and the people by finding hidden meanings in the Constitution whenever they want to create or curtail a law or right.
How could a branch of government created to protect our rights abuse their power with such impunity? This runaway judicial activism must be stopped. The fact that we even consider the ideology of a judicial nominee is an indication of how far we've allowed the Supreme Court to stray from its original role. The third, and intentionally weakest, branch of government was created to oversee the rulings of lower courts, and determine whether a decision violated a citizen's Constitutional rights. Why should a judge's personal beliefs matter, if they are working within the framework set down by the Founders? Now any five members of the Supreme Court can remove those rights and create new ones at will, with no real check on their power except advancing age. Their personal opinions have become important because "They the Justices," not "We the People," are in control.
They have lost the House, the Senate, the White House and a majority of governorships and state legislatures. Now the Liberals may lose control of the Supreme Court. But that's one of the main reasons the majority of Americans keep voting for more Conservative representation where they can find it -- to correct, if possible, these abuses of power. Bush's words about halting the actions of agenda-driven courts got some of the loudest applause during his campaign speeches. We're supposed to be a Republic, ruled by the people, not a group of lawyers carried away with their own sense of self-importance.
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