SCOTUS and McCain's VP Pick

[crwtom 0]

The discussion about McCains VP pick herself has essentially reached Inquirer level. Substance is thin both for the VP nominee as well as the discussion about her.

The more interesting question is what does it say about the decision process the top of the ticket. The person who people effectively vote for and who, with this pick, gives an indication on how he will make appointments.

The biggest appointments that are on the agenda for the next year are those for Supreme Court Justices that are expected to leave.

This is what we can expect to be on the SCOTUS if McCain gets elected???

The mostly staunchly conservative on social issues, government intrusion into reproductive rights even in the most extreme cases, mixing religion with public process, etc.

There was a time when I hoped he was saying this radical stuff just to please the religious right and was more sensible in reality. After his VP pick I have no such hope anymore. He's as narrow minded as the rest of them.


Cheers, T

*******************************************************************
Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

[Lucky... 0]

Quote

The discussion about McCains VP pick herself has essentially reached Inquirer level. Substance is thin both for the VP nominee as well as the discussion about her.

The more interesting question is what does it say about the decision process the top of the ticket. The person who people effectively vote for and who, with this pick, gives an indication on how he will make appointments.

The biggest appointments that are on the agenda for the next year are those for Supreme Court Justices that are expected to leave.

This is what we can expect to be on the SCOTUS if McCain gets elected???

The mostly staunchly conservative on social issues, government intrusion into reproductive rights even in the most extreme cases, mixing religion with public process, etc.

There was a time when I hoped he was saying this radical stuff just to please the religious right and was more sensible in reality. After his VP pick I have no such hope anymore. He's as narrow minded as the rest of them.


Cheers, T

Didn't you used to be very right wing?

[lawrocket 3]

I find it interesting that there seems to be the idea that the sole threat to individual liberties comes from Republican court appointees. And particularly with regard to religion and abortion.

We've been hearing this from the left for 25 years. GOP nominees hold (and have held) a 7-2 advantage for a substantial amount of time now - and it hasn't happened. Abortion has been revisited and not overturned. Despite the dire predictions of a religious republic it hasn't happened. We've got history to look back on, folks.

I'd think after this long without it happening would be good enough. But I guess in the year 2100 they'll still be saying it...

Aside: it's not that I don't have problems with the conservatives on the SCOTUS. I have BIG issues with the 4th Amendment issues andack of due process to detainees, etc. But similar abrogations of personal rights are seen in such things as the medical marijuana cases. Hint - it wasn't Clarence Thomas who decided that private purely intrastate conduct can be regulated under the Commerce Clause.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[Muenkel 0]

Jerry,

You've made this very accurate point many times here. The problem is that people hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest.

_________________________________________
Chris

[StreetScooby 5]

It shows that Republican appointees have a respect for stare decisis. My feeling is Democratic appointees have less respect for that. IMO, Democrats want to make "all of our decisions easier", and they know best how to do that. It's laughable.

We are all engines of karma

[lawrocket 3]

I would agree with this general approach.

The whole thing started back in the 1930's. FDR and Congress kept instituting programs to grow the federal government (the time was right for such a thing - when the fit hits the shan, extreme approaches are more palatable). The problem was that there was a SCOTUS that kept interpreting the Constitution as that of prescribing a limited federal government. That doesn't work for FDR. And they kept on doing it.

So FDR decides that he's gonna forward a law to increase the number of Justices from 9 to whatever number will assure him of a court packed the courrt with guys who will no doubt rule his way. (Not necessarily rule on the Constitution, mind you, but in his favor - there are times when the Constitution is handy if it supports your side).

Google: "A switch in time saves nine." A SCOTUS Judge decided to go against the precedents that actually held in favor of freedom of contract (the nerve of the SCOTUS to actually agree that people have the right to negotiate without government intervention.)

The Courts - and stare decisis - stood in the way of FDR's federal takeover of authority over everything.
And it was only the older judges that were doing it. FDR's approach was fresh ("mainstream" is the new term for it) and these judges' thinking was as old as the Constitution itself! So his plan was to add a new judge for every judge over 70 - ironically, the very judges who seemed to vote against him every time.

So one of the judges apparently decided that the tradition thought was going to be destroyed, and thought it better to remain than to be sacked.

Since then, we have seen, particularly with the Warren court, activism at play. This is the "living, breathing Constitution." Under this theory, the Constitution changes over time. The way to do this is for the courts to rewrite it with their decisions.

Now the originalists are stuck with stare decisis of the activists. What is an originalist to do? Go back to the original intent of the Constitutution, which would be activist in overturning existing cases? Or, respect stare decisis as a non-activist judge would?

See the tension? The activists fucked it up, but it would be activist to fix it. Hence the reason why activists will always control.

Ironically, I believe that the use of the courts by the liberals throughout the 1900's as instruments of social change is what brought about the populist nature of the Republicans - probably because the use of the courts, outside of the realm of public comment, was seen as a power grab by Okie Joe and Redneck Jed.


In a bow to Ruth Bader Ginsberg, she is an enemy of activism.

How many of the lefties on here look at Ginsberg as someone who has stated her intense displeasure with Roe v. Wade? She has been the probably the most outspoken member of the court in coming out against the way an activist court handled the abortion issue.

When she was being confirmed, she told the Senate Judiciary Committe: "we must always remember that we live in a democracy that can be destroyed if judges take it upon themselves to rule as Platonic guardians." She then criticized Roe v. Wade because it pre-empted the legislative process. The told that court that while she's answering questions about the case 20 years later, this would not have been the case had the court not ruled as it did, or more appropriately, with the methodology it used. She said, "the people would have expressed themselves in an enduring way on this question" through state-by-state laws.

And note from a lecture she gave a few months before her nomination. She favored changes made at a deliberate pace via legislation and amendment, stating that changes this way "seem to be right, in the main, for constitutional as well as common-law adjudication. Doctrinal limbs too swiftly shaped, experience teaches, may prove unstable."

Now - to all you lefties out there worried about political appointees. Take a look at Ginsberg - the most likely to overturn Roe v. Wade.

And righties - take a look at Ginsberg, a Clinton appointee, doing her job the way you should appreciate.

Political parties too often try out litmus tests on judicial appointees. "DO you support abortion? Do you support the rights of terrorist killers who would cut you throat and castrate your children to be free of intervention of the government on the basis of the extreme threat of violence they pose and granting them rights to asylum and freedom to kill and torture you and all Americans and..."

The GOP, is seems, has does a much better job of this. It is this that I think more than anything has caused the grassroots support the GOP has appreciated since Reagan - and maybe even Nixon. The common man generally considers it cheating to use the courts for social change. And since only one side of the politcal spectrum is by definition in favor of change, they'd be the only ones using that tactic.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[rushmc 23]

WOW, what a great post!

Thank You

Any chance of you becoming a SCJ?

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[lawrocket 3]

No way I could become one. There are thousands of posts on here that people would use to find me to be an ideological extremist. The righties would hate me because of my views on the 4th Amendment and due process. The lefties would hate me because of my views on the commerce clause - and on due process.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[kallend 2,148]

Quote

No way I could become one. There are thousands of posts on here that people would use to find me to be an ideological extremist. The righties would hate me because of my views on the 4th Amendment and due process. The lefties would hate me because of my views on the commerce clause - and on due process.

That's nothing. There are people on here who'd have no hesitation at all in pushing you out of a plane.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[rushmc 23]

Quote

Quote

No way I could become one. There are thousands of posts on here that people would use to find me to be an ideological extremist. The righties would hate me because of my views on the 4th Amendment and due process. The lefties would hate me because of my views on the commerce clause - and on due process.

That's nothing. There are people on here who'd have no hesitation at all in pushing you out of a plane.

HEY

With or without a parachute???


(context is everything)

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 23]

Quote

No way I could become one. There are thousands of posts on here that people would use to find me to be an ideological extremist. The righties would hate me because of my views on the 4th Amendment and due process. The lefties would hate me because of my views on the commerce clause - and on due process.

I dont
(not that is really worth anything)

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln