Posted on 10/22/2005 5:55:50 PM PDT by FairOpinion
At one point, Miers described her service on the Dallas City Council in 1989. When the city was sued on allegations that it violated the Voting Rights Act, she said, "the council had to be sure to comply with the proportional representation requirement of the Equal Protection Clause."
But the Supreme Court repeatedly has said the Constitution's guarantee of "equal protection of the laws" does not mean that city councils or state legislatures must have the same proportion of blacks, Latinos and Asians as the voting population.
"That's a terrible answer. There is no proportional representation requirement under the equal protection clause," said New York University law professor Burt Neuborne, a voting rights expert. "If a first-year law student wrote that and submitted it in class, I would send it back and say it was unacceptable."
"The equal protection clause does not require proportional representation," the court said in a 6-3 decision. In dissent, Justice Thurgood Marshall said the decision gave blacks the right to cast "meaningless ballots."
In response, Congress moved to change the Voting Rights Act to permit challenges to election systems that had the effect of excluding minorities from power. The Reagan administration opposed those efforts, saying they would lead to a proportional representation rule.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
CONTRAST AND COMPARE with JANICE ROGERS BROWN:
"By far the strongest, however, is Brown's - the court's main opinion, in which she was joined by three other justices. She gave Proposition 209 a broad and forceful reading, interpreting it to outlaw not just explicit quotas but also race and gender "goals," because "a participation goal differs from a quota or a set-aside only in degree.
Brown set the measure in historical context, hailing it as a statement of the venerable rule that no one should be treated better or worse than another on account of race. She quoted the late Yale Law School Professor Alexander Bickel: "[D]iscrimination on the basis of race is illegal, immoral, unconstitutional, inherently wrong, and destructive of democratic society." The U.S. Supreme Court had veered from this principle, Brown noted; Proposition 209 represents a decision by the California electorate to return to it, reasserting a goal of "equal opportunity for all individuals" rather than "entitlement based on group representation."
Justice Brown is committed to racial equality because she is committed to individual rights, and to protecting individuals, of all colors, against government abuse, even when the abuse is based in a popular consensus. Just as the small hotel owners of San Francisco should be free unjustified government coercion, and no contractor should be denied business because of race, so Mr. McKay should be free from arbitrary exercises of state power. Since many small entrepreneurs are members of racial minorities, protecting business against intrusive government meddling is more relevant to their welfare than most of the incendiary causes in Jesse Jackson's bag of tricks.
Brown is also a strong believer in individual property rights:
""Private property, already an endangered species in California, is now entirely extinct in San Francisco," she observed. The City had become a "neo-feudal regime." She reprimanded fellow jurists who automatically give a pass to confiscatory land-use restrictions. "Once again a majority of this court has proved that 'if enough people get together and act in concert, they can take something and not pay for it.' But theft is theft. Theft is theft even when the government approves of the thievery."
Read the article from 2003 about her:
My problem is not that the answer was 'dumb", but that along with her notion that affirmative action is OK is highly disturbing.
Janice Rogers Brown came out strongly in her opinions AGAINST affirmative action.
JRB was also possibly one of the people on Bush's list who said no to SCOTUS confirmation.
You play the cards you're dealt.
We don't know Brown said no, do we?
You have one author who thinks her answers weren't "dumb" and there are dozens who think they were.
http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20051020-092128-7325r.htm
Here's an idea. Why don't you post the same article for the seventh time today?
Do I hear 8? Anyone give me 8? Going once, going twice..
8!
OK, who'll post 9? ...
Sorry to disappoint you, but this article has NOT been posted before.
Try again.
IWWT.
And that's the problem.
The entire Miers situation is a bunch of pundits and posters screaming at each other because both groups know nothing; one group decided to be angry that they know nothing, and one group decided to hold back for more information before becoming angry.
Indeed. But I'm not seeing a problem with Powerline's analysis.
Because the guy who nominated her to the appellate court wouldn't consider her SCOTUS material, right?
Please.
Here is the Miers article from the LA Times on Yahoo news, so you can read it, without signing in:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/latimests/20051022/ts_latimes/miersanswerraisesquestions
How about the guy who appointed her to the appellate court ask her if she wanted to go through the confirmation process again, and she said NO!??
Souter in a skirt.
I'm not sure that Hindraker is right about this. The more I read these words the more they seem either confusing or wrong.
"[D]iscrimination on the basis of race is illegal, immoral, unconstitutional, inherently wrong, and destructive of democratic society." The U.S. Supreme Court had veered from this principle, Brown noted;
"equal opportunity for all individuals" rather than "entitlement based on group representation."
Since many small entrepreneurs are members of racial minorities, protecting business against intrusive government meddling is more relevant to their welfare than most of the incendiary causes in Jesse Jackson's bag of tricks.
"Theft is theft even when the government approves of the thievery."
______________________________________
Outstanding!
Are we even sure she wrote this? Susan Estrich was on Heartland tonight and said that she had written Breyer's judicial paperwork before his hearing and doesn't think the person who wrote Miers' did her any favors. I keep hearing people call Miers a dumb mass because of her questionaire and it seems it may have been written by a clerk. Can someone clarify this for me?
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