Wonder what the average IQ of that crowd was?
Posted on 07/23/2002 7:18:53 PM PDT by Jean S
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush v. Gore presidential election case is an example of a hypocritical Supreme Court majority that broadens the rights of states only when it serves conservative ends, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday.
Clinton, D-N.Y., criticized the court's recent trend of 5-4 cases that have favored state power over federal control. The case that ended Florida ballot recounts in the disputed 2000 presidential election was also a 5-4 vote, but it stripped a state of power to administer its own laws, the former first lady said.
"Perhaps even more disturbing than the court's impulse to defend state and local prerogatives is the selectivity of that impulse," Clinton told an audience of law students, lawyers and judges at the liberal American Constitution Society.
States win the power struggle when they want to claim immunity from civil rights lawsuits or get tough on criminals, but not when they want to limit cigarette ads, help fund legal help for poor people, or "follow their own election laws," Clinton said.
The Bush v. Gore case centered on whether a fair recount could be done under Florida election law and still give the state time to have its electors included in the Electoral College.
Clinton called the court led by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist "one of the most activist, if not the most activist, Supreme Court ever in American history."
Conservatives, including President Bush, have criticized "judicial activism," or the substitution of a judge's own views for established law. Conservatives have pointed to the civil rights-era decisions of the court under Chief Justice Warren Burger as examples of such activism.
Critics on the left have countered, as Clinton did Tuesday, that activism is often in the eye of the beholder.
While the court has the power to strike down federal laws, it has been historically reluctant to do so, Clinton noted.
The Warren court struck down federal laws in about 20 cases over 16 years, she said. The Rehnquist court, in the last eight terms alone, has done so in 32 cases. Eleven of those were states' rights cases in which the state prevailed, and many of those involved states trying to avoid "enforcement of civil rights guaranteed by federal law," Clinton said.
"In addition to installing an American president, the current Supreme Court has invalidated federal laws at the most astounding rate in our nation's history," Clinton said to applause and laughter.
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On the Net:
American Constitution Society site: www.americanconstitutionsociety.org
AP-ES-07-23-02 2203EDT
Someone tell that (BLEEP) to sit down and (use your imagination). No wonder Bill cheats on her so much....
Or that an embryo sometimes becomes a human or…
The audience was laughing because Hill and Bill broke federal laws at the most astounding rate in our nation's history.
And this is "The Smartest Woman on Earth"?
What history has she been studying?
Wonder what the average IQ of that crowd was?
All we need is a plague in August, and she can kiss her hopes good bye. When any country's people find themselves in danger, they elect the meanest, hardest, most determined patriot they can find. Hillary doesn't fit that description. She is simply vomitous.
Actually, the US Supreme Court stripped the Florida Supreme Court of the power to ignore Florida state laws whenever they damn well felt like it. Terrible shame, that.
NO!
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