Supreme consequences

The Washington Times ^ | October 6, 2004

[Pfesser]

... The interest in the court during the 1980 election was well-placed. President Reagan, who left office nearly 16 years ago, appointed three currently serving associate justices (Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy) and elevated Mr. Rehnquist to chief justice. Indeed, Mr. Rehnquist was initially appointed to the court in 1971 by President Nixon, two years after he nominated Warren Burger as chief justice. Thus, while Mr. Nixon served only five-and-a-half years as president, he appointed to the court two justices who have cumulatively served as chief justice for more than 35 years and counting...

During the 2000 presidential campaign, Mr. Bush identified justices Scalia and Clarence Thomas, who firmly occupy the court's conservative wing, as the two court members he most admired... Concerning John Kerry's likely court appointment(s), consider his status as the Senate's most liberal member (according to National Journal) and the fact that his lifetime "liberal quotient" from Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) is higher than Ted Kennedy's.

With a 20-year record like that, it isn't a stretch to believe that Mr. Kerry would prefer the same kind of justices favored by fellow Massachusetts congressional member Barney Frank, a graduate of Harvard Law School, former Harvard lecturer and possessor of a lifetime ADA "liberal quotient" of 98.4 percent. If you like Mr. Frank's politics, it's safe to say, you'll love Mr. Kerry's Supreme Court appointment(s).

[Noachian]

The fact is that the majority of the justices on the Supreme Court have become agenda driven activists, and that bodes ill for the American people as a whole.

This "third branch of government" now sees itself as the "overseer" of the Executive and the Legislature through its use of judicial review.

While I agree that conservative justices must be appointed to the High Court it's also obvious that an appointee, who is answerable to no one for the remainder of his/her life, would find it difficult not to succumb to the power of the office.

Although some will argue that the Congress has the power to rein in the Judiciary it has shown little inclination to do so over the past years, and it is this abdication of congressional responsibility that has given the Court its ability to unconstitutionally and incrementally change our Constitution.

In this regard the position of the Supreme Court in American politics must be reexamined. Conservatives must be appointed not only to the Court, but also to the Congress. Without a truly Conservative Congress acting as an "active" watchdog over the Judiciary it doesn't matter how many conseravtive Justices are appointed to the Court.

All Justices are human, and all humans are venal.