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Posted on 04/28/2008 11:06:57 AM PDT by Congressman Billybob
Sunday night on “60 Minutes,” Lesley Stahl interviewed Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Half of the interview was excellent, reviewing his history from his childhood in New York City. The other half of the interview, on his judicial philosophy, was dreadful.
Several times, Stahl attacked Scalia for his judicial theory of “originalism,” while leaving parts of his comments on the cutting room floor. She displayed a lack of knowledge about the Constitution. She referred to Scalia’s theory as fixing the meaning of the Constitution as the intentions of “people who ratified it over 200 years ago.” That echoed the comments of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg used in this interview.
The important point, which Scalia probably made in parts not aired, is that the Constitution was last amended in 1992. The 27th Amendment, proposed as part of the Bill of Rights, was finally ratified then. The opposite point by Justice Ginsburg and Lesley Stahl was that times change, and therefore the Constitution must change. Ginsburg even said to Stahl, and Stahl nodded in agreement, that “we the people” did not include “people like us.”
More than a third of the state legislators who acted to ratify the 27th Amendment were women. The Constitution itself makes all who act at any time to amend the Constitution, equal in importance. Article V provides for amendments to the Constitution. Either Congress or a new Convention can propose amendments, “which shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified....”
The Constitution DOES change as times change, but it does so legitimately only when that change happens with “the consent of the governed.” Apparently, Lesley Stahl has not read the Declaration of Independence lately, either. In Jefferson’s immortal words, the first political right, immediately after the unalienable rights from our Creator, is this:
“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed....”
The idea that the meaning of the Constitution can be varied by the act of just five people on the Supreme Court, is a direct assault on the theory in the Declaration and the law in the Constitution. Only amendment as provided in Article V includes the “consent of the governed.”
If Lesley Stahl had really done her homework, she might have read George Washington’s Farewell Address to the American People. In it, he wrote, “the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all.” He meant the amendment process. He did not mean the vote of merely five Justices of the Court.
Lastly, Stahl attacked Scalia for his part in Bush v. Gore, the case concerning Florida’s election of Presidential Electors in 2000. Scalia pointed out that this was not a narrow decision. The vote to find that the Florida Supreme Court had violated the First Amendment was 7-2. The mainstream media, many of whom were rooting for Al Gore to win the election, reported it as a “5-4 decision.” In truth, the vote on the remedy was 5-4. The vote on whether Florida’s high court had violated the Constitution, was 7-2, exactly as Scalia said.
Stahl said that the US Supreme Court’s decision “handed the election to George Bush.” Scalia’s reply as broadcast, said, “the election would have come out the same way.” Since I’ve read all of Scalia’s opinions and practiced in the Supreme Court, I’m sure that Scalia stated the facts as well as the law. He certainly referred to the one-year, million-dollar review of the Florida vote by several newspapers, led by the New York Times. That review concluded, as Scalia said, that under the scenario sought by Al Gore, George Bush would have won that election without the Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore.
The last item that Stahl did not read in the Constitution was in Article VI, that the Constitution is “the supreme Law of the Land,” and all judges and courts are bound to follow it. It must be the “supreme Law,” for otherwise the Constitution would have a different meaning in different parts of the nation. But that also means it is binding even on Supreme Court Justices on the subject of amending the Constitution.
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About the Author: John Armor wrote for the American Civil Rights Union the only brief in Bush v. Gore which urged the Court to “strike the Florida Supreme Court’s decision” and “do nothing else.” That is what the Court did, 9-0, the first time it took up Bush v. Gore.
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John / Billybob
it was my pleasure and my intention
You are like a watchman on the wall. I pray that you be elected to congress. I also remind all of FreeRepublic that you need funds to run.
Throughout the last several months, I've read so many posts from freepers stating that they are not going to send money to the Rep party and are withholding funds from other candidates because they are fed up with this or that.
Well folks here's a candidate we know and can trust.
John is a true warrior and champion and we should support his candidacy financially.
The law of averages say that if each of you disappointed FR members would donate in kind to Johns campaign well he'd probably be able to take his mind off fund raising and get on with the business of dispatching his adversary.
You can reach John by clicking on the redirect link above.
Freepmail or ping me on the thread to be added to the John Armor for Congress ping list.
read later
Scalia didn’t have the time nor the inclination to educate Stahl. He would have wasted his time explaining why interrogation is not punishment and therefore cannot be “cruel and unusual punishment”. “I’m right”, coming from a Supreme Court justice renders her opinion moot.
Post production she probably researched the matter and wrote a thank you note to Scalia./S
Les Moonves can’t shut down the CBS News division soon enough.
Excellent work! As to expected.
Bump
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