Laurence Tribe: A ‘Traitor’ To The Environmental Agenda

The Daily Caller ^ | 2015-04-10 | Jim Huffman

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Gina McCarthy, speaks at the Center for American Progress' 2014 Making Progress Policy Conference in Washington November 19, 2014. REUTERS/Gary Cameron

Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe has been getting a lot of press in advance of his representation of Peabody Energy in its dispute with the Obama Administration over the constitutionality of the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon dioxide emission regulations. The New York Times reported (April 6) that many of Tribe’s colleagues at Harvard Law School are “bewildered and angry.” Jody Freeman, director of the environmental law program at Harvard Law School, told the Times that Tribe’s claims of unconstitutionality are “baseless.” Freeman and respected law professor and Supreme Court advocate Richard Lazarus wrote on the Harvard Law School website that Mr. Tribe’s arguments are “ridiculous.”

Really? The legal analysis of one of the country’s leading constitutional scholars has no merit whatsoever?

Worse yet, Tribe has even been called a traitor. But a traitor to what? It can’t be that he is a traitor to the constitution. Every constitutional case involves disagreement over the meaning of the constitution. Judges, including Supreme Court justices, often disagree about constitutional requirements. Losing arguments and dissenting opinions are not the pronouncements of traitors. That Professor Tribe disagrees with the Obama administration and apparently most academic lawyers could not make him a traitor to the constitution.

Tribe’s sin is not that he might prove to be wrong on the constitutional issue. Rather it is that he might prove to be right and thereby undercut the Obama administration’s climate change policies. In other words, Tribe is a traitor to the environmentalist policy agenda.

Sadly, this sort of characterization of legal arguments is increasingly commonplace. When Ted Olson joined J to argue in defense of gay marriage he was deemed a traitor by many social conservatives. When Chief Justice John Roberts provided the fifth vote to uphold the constitutionality of Obamacare he was labeled a traitor by opponents of the health care law. But like Tribe, right or wrong, these people were stating honestly held legal conclusions, not personal policy preferences. Or so we must fervently hope.

The politicization of legal argument is particularly evident in the legal academy. Many law professors see themselves as advocates for particular causes, not teachers of the law. Environmental law professors, for example, are overwhelmingly dedicated to preparing their students to represent the environmentalist side of environmental disputes. Those who would suggest that the law sometimes actually favors the position of an energy company or some other ‘enemy’ of the environment are dismissed as hired guns. Either you’re on the side of the environmentalists, or you’re the enemy. And woe unto someone like Professor Tribe who was presumed to be on the side of right and good but appears to have taken up the cause of the enemy.

Honest disagreements over the meaning of the constitution and other laws should be the grist of academic debate, not the basis for labeling one side or the other as traitorous. Professor Tribe should be, and will be in the upcoming legal proceedings, challenged on the legal merits of his constitutional argument. By dismissing his views as those of a traitorous hired gun we invite the courts to do the same.

[sauropod]

Tribe is no hero. He is as liberal as they grow.

[Fightin Whitey]

Funny.

First look at the photograph and I thought Larry had fatted up and gaily blossomed.

Tribe is like Derschowitz in that the present-day lunacy of American Leftists occasionally compels even him out from under his rock.

[BenLurkin]

Yup.

A staunch enemy of original intent.

When Tribe says the Obamunists are undermining the Constitution - Everyone should sit up and take notice!

[ChicagahAl]

Tribe’s colleagues at Harvard Law School are “bewildered and angry".

All Liberals are “bewildered and angry".

It's why they're Liberals.