Posted on 07/19/2005 6:49:13 AM PDT by Pyro7480
I'm not optimistic if GWB is consulting with Captain RINO, Chief-Back-Stabber-in-Waiting Specter.
This might be premature, so forgive me, but what do you know about Judge Clement? Do you think she is reliable?
Excellent sourcing, Ollie. As for my parsing:
She did say that the CONSTITUTION found that a right to privacy exists. Which is absolutely correct: the zone of what constitutes search and siezure has always been defined by the concept of privacy.
When asked whether the right to privacy extends to abortion, she did not answer the Yes/No question with a Yes. Instead, she deferred to the US Supreme Court, and promised to faithfully apply precedent.
She is no Judge Moore, but she is no Justice Souter either.
Politically, I would have relished the fight with the Democrats, as it would hand us a winning issue in subsequent elections. And I WOULD feel more comfortable with a noisier conservative, like Rogers-Brown, who would never be tempted to become part of the beltway establishment. But I do not feel sold down the river on Clement. She looks every bit as conservative as Thomas or Scalia did.
Do you know the context in which Edith Clement said abortion was constitutionally protected and that Roe was settled law? If she said it in a ruling, a case could be made that she was only abiding by Supreme Court precedent, as she had to do as a lower court judge. But if she said it as a philosophical belief, in a speech or in response to a question, that's very worrisome, and it would hardly qualify her as a strict constructionist to be defending the worst example of judicial overreach in our nation's history.
Well, of course.
That's the way the system is supposed to work, isn't it?
A lower court can't directly overturn a SCOTUS ruling on a case.
But they can certainly judge similar cases on their own merits, and force the SCOTUS to either reaffirm or overturn previous decisions.
It's probably considered good form to inform the head of the Judiciary committe prior to making a public announcement.
That's certainly true. I hope the communication was in the form of an announcement rather than a consultation.
Yes, the Constitution does include a right to privacy. A right to privacy was understood to exist at the time the Constitution was written, and the ninth amendment makes clear that the enumeration of certain rights in the bill of rights does not mean that other rights are not still reserved by the people. The right to privacy has been, from the beginning, the key to understanding various of the amendments and clauses of the constitution, such as the defense against search and siezure.
But the definition of privacy has always been those issues at which there is no public interest. There is plainly a public interest in protecting the lives of all persons. The problem with Roe v Wade is that it used an absurd legalism to infer that since the fourteenth amendment did not define unborn people as persons, they did not even have the right to life, and thus found that there was no legitimate state interest in the regulation of abortion.
Please read today's www.newsmax.com. The article referenced at the top makes her position very clear.
Your analysis nails it pretty well, I would say.
I think there is zero chance she would be Souter redux.
At this point, we cannot rule out O'Connor redux.
Thanks for the insight.
Now you've got me speculating on what bait it would take to lure a few more off the bench!
I do not believe that this quotation cited in Newsmax makes her position clear. Let's take a look at it....
She has stated that the Supreme Court "has clearly held that the right to privacy guaranteed by the Constitution includes the right to have an abortion" and that "the law is settled in that regard."
First, her statement that the Supreme Court "has clearly held that the right to privacy guaranteed by the Constition includes the right to have an abortion." This is a correct statement of the law. The Supreme Court has so held this to be true. Justices Scalia and Thomas would agree. She is simply stating the position of the current Supreme Court.
Second, her statement that "the law is settled in that regard" is also a correct statement of the law as it now stands.
These statements are not particularly useful in trying to determine how she might decide an abortion case and they do not reflect what her own viewpoints would be. Really, it boils down to what stare decisis effect she might give to Roe v. Wade and its progeny.
From all that I have seen and read from her decisions, she seems to be a strict constructionist. Taking all of this together, it is very hard for anyone to predict extactly how she would vote. For that matter, it was just as hard to predict how Scalia or Thomas would have voted at the time they were nominated.
No nominee will come out and state that Roe v. Wade should be overturned. It just won't happen that way. There will always be a certain guessing game in terms of trying to predict who a nominee will behave once on the Court.
If she is a strict constructionist, she will belive the Constitution trumps all, the intent of the founders next and only in last place, above judicial whim, is precidence.
As long as you ignore the Fourth, Fifth and probably the Third amendments it doesn't. And the Ninth as well.
But as a Supreme Court Justice she would be free to overrule Roe if she felt that's what the Constitution requires. This article says nothing about the real question, which is how she would vote as a Justice, not a Judge of a court inferior to SCOTUS.
A trade of Sandy for Edie will be a great move for Conservatives. Who cares if the Lunatic Fringe is unhappy? It is ALWAYS unhappy.
Did that make you feel smart? I hope so because to the rest of us, you just sound like a pompous jerk.
Calm down? Calm down? How can we calm down? When everything hold dear is about to be sold down the river for 30 pieces of silver. It is time to PANIC, Panic I say nothing good ever happens without PANIC.
If the Lunatic Fringe does not get its way it will sit in the corner and POUT and all the world is powerless before a good Pout.
"Rest of us"? You speak for the entirety of Free Republic? Should I resign in shame? Megalomania does not become you, sweetie. But it is most consistent with your bombastic concepts of reality. No matter what the universal "you" believes, ABORTION WILL GO DOWN BECAUSE IT IS WRONG! Forgive me if I use the upper case, which I gather is your registered trademark.
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