Ted Kennedy knows integrity.
Posted on 09/17/2005 11:46:08 AM PDT by maryz
Ted Kennedy should be thankful that the University of Virginia isn’t in the habit of revoking degrees. Otherwise, Massachusetts’ senior senator would be in serious danger of losing his degree based on the legal incompetence he’s demonstrated in his questioning of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts.
Kennedy, who inherited his Senate sear a measly 43 years ago, hasn’t been the only senator to embarrass himself at the Roberts hearing. Almost without exception, the senators – Democrat and Republican –have been long-winded, arrogant and incapable of appreciating the distinction between constitutional theory and political advocacy.
But Kennedy has been in a class by himself. Unfortunately for Massachusetts, that class has been kindergarten. His feeble grasp of the law has been shocking.
Kennedy began his interrogation of Roberts by discussing Brown vs. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 case outlawing segregation in public schools. To listen to Kennedy, one might conclude that Brown is still a hotly debated decision in legal circles. That wasn’t even true back in 1962, when Kennedy first joined the Senate. It’s certainly not true today.
Yet Kennedy pressed Roberts on the reasoning of Brown in an apparent attempt to get insight into the nominee’s thinking. Indeed, Kennedy provided a window into his own thought process – which seems to permanently frozen in the 1950s and 1960s.
Next, Kennedy confronted Roberts about the Civil Rights Act of 1964. “Do you have any concerns or reservations about the constitutionality of this law that outlawed discrimination in public accommodation, employment and other areas?” Kennedy asked.
Roberts patiently noted that the constitutionality of this statute is not in doubt, and was polite enough not to point out that any questions about the law’s constitutionality were conclusively resolved before Roberts entered junior high school.
But Kennedy barreled on, stopping next in 1965 at the Voting Rights Act. After establishing the original law was constitutional, Kennedy flashed forward all the way to 1982, when Roberts was a young lawyer in President Reagan’s Justice Department.
Reagan wanted to renew the Voting Rights Act in its original form. But Kennedy and other liberals sought to amend the statute to overturn a U.S. Supreme Court decision called Mobile vs. Bolden. That case held that plaintiffs suing under the statute had to show intent to discriminate, not merely that a voting scheme had a discriminatory effect.
Stunningly, then 27-year-old Roberts advocated the position of his boss, Reagan, and not that of Kennedy, who ultimately got his way when Congress amended the law to reverse Mobile vs. Bolden. Not content with having won the legislative battle, Kennedy now blames Roberts for the Reagan administration’s policy.
What Kennedy refused to acknowledge, despite Roberts’ valiant efforts to educate, is that there never would have been an issue at all if, back in 1965, Congress had bothered to articulate when, and even if, citizens could sue to enforce Voting Rights Act protections.
Instead, Congress was silent, leaving it to the courts to try to guess what lawmakers were thinking when they passed the law. Rather than spell out exactly what they meant, Kennedy and others signed on to the Voting Rights Act in 1965 hoping that judges would finish the legislative job by construing the statute in a manner acceptable to liberals. They did so not because they couldn’t be more specific, but because they would have lost crucial support if they had written such broad language into the statute.
This has been a typical liberal legislative tactic over the last half-century. Pass laws claiming they mean one thing and then ask the courts to interpret them more broadly. That’s why it’s so important for liberals to have judges on the bench who believe it’s their job to make policy.
And that’s why it’s crucial for there to be more judges like John Roberts who understand that policy debates do not belong in the court, they belong in Congress – where puny legal minds like Ted Kennedy’s fit right in.
Paul J. Martinek is a lawyer and writer.
Bravo!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Has Kennedy ever passed the bar?
ping
I doubt he passed the bar exam, but he's never passed a bar.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Ted Kennedy knows integrity.
Not without first stopping in for a few drinks.
Not without ducking in for a quick one.
Teddy has never passed a bar without going in for atleast one drink. Preferably Chivas on the rocks.
Yes; Yes; Yes; Amen to all of it;
"Pass laws claiming they mean one thing and then ask the courts to interpret them more broadly"
That is why NOBODY can understand anything that any law says anymore.
We should require all laws to have a sunset clause and be written in ENGLISH - plain and simple - the TEN Commandments weren't that diffuclt to understand - I could understand the Bill of RIghts in Junior High - why can't lawyer scumbags and their Masters-in-black-robes understand?
Is that why we cannot have a reading comprehension test for voters? Most of the politicians, lawyers and judges couldn't pass the test?
He confuses stare deceased mistress with stare decisis.
Ted is a joke..
possibly the best editorial EVER !!
I REALLY CANT BELIVE THERE ARE THAT MANY STUPID PEOPLE IN MASS TO RE-ELECT HIM NUMEROUS TIMES.
Yes he has, many - and never without stopping in.
:-)
. . . the University of Virginia Law School 1959; served in the United States Army 1951-1953; admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1959; appointed assistant district attorney in Suffolk County 1961; elected in a special election on November 6, 1962, as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the 1960 resignation of his brother, John Fitzgerald Kennedy . . . .
Looks like he whiled away the two years from passing the MA bar in 1959 until he got in as Asst DA in Suffolk (Boston) in 1961 (political influence here? Surely not!) to give him some credibility for the Senate run.
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