Enjoy.
John / Billybob
If original intent was limited government, how can we believe Bush will put in an original intent judge.
Bush has grown the government in size and spending virtually unknown in history.
Would he appoint a judge that would rule all his programs are unconstitutional?
Excellent.
Thanks, John. Good post.
Another important thing the judges do which has as much impact as the rulings they make, and perhaps is effected more directly by their attitudes toward the constitution, is the decison whether or not to hear a case.
Great article.
There is no real reason to ask a nominee ANY questions. That is a Rat tactic and valueless if you expect an appointee to rule on questions of law and not have to recuse himself (as you mention). These nominations should be about the record of judicial rulings. If we appoint a judge whose promise is to be conservative but whose record is unclear, we are wasting an appointment. The appointee must be a proven conservative jurist or a verifiable Constitutionalist.
There must be no more Souters.
I don't understand this.
Every member of the Court which decided Kelo is in the same position. They reviewed the facts, heard the arguments, and came to a decision. How is the fact that a nominee does the same thing when questioned by the Senate act as a disqualifier when having actually ruled in the original case, whether concurring or dissenting, does not?
Potential Third Question: "... and you feel your previous work experience as an Air America talk show host qualifies you for this far more intellectually demanding position how, precisely...?" :)
Sadly, O'Connor has not resigned. If she had resigned there would be a vacancy. As it is there is no vacancy.
She has handed in a resignation that she says is effective on the confirmation of her replacement by the Senate.
Effectively, she has thumbed her nose (again) at the Constitution which gives the president recess appointment power to deal with any Senate's inability to effect a timely consent to a nominee. With her non-resignation and non-vacancy, she has very "cutely" taken that option away from the president.
Perhaps the president would never have used it, but her disdain for the constitution includes making herself bigger than it's provisions and intent.
Were I president Bush, I wouldn't have accepted her letter of non-resignation.
For a Supreme Court appointment, the two questions are: Do you understand the Constitution? Will you enforce the Constitution?
...a Senator smart enough to ask the right questions (yes, Virginia, there are a few smart and honest Senators), could inquire whether the nominee agrees with Madison, Hamilton and Jay in the Federalist.
The definitive question, imo..
Do you agree that the 2nd Amendment is a Law of the Land, - and therefore must be supported, as written, by all judges & officials, -- notwithstanding any State laws to the contrary?
How would you answer, Billybob?
By the way, re Kelo: will it be used now as a precedent, and is it likely that the Court might rule differently on a similar future case?
Please comment, if you will, on this quotation from Lincoln's First Inaugural:
"I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court, nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case upon the parties to a suit as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the Government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.
"Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes." - Abraham Lincoln
(Underlining added for emphasis)
Favorite liberal sport, throwing out pieces of the Bill of Rights. Ranks behind throwing out God, but ahead of throwing out the Ten Commandments and about even with throwing out the Magna Carta.
dat's funny!
justice ginzburg wanted to eliminate mother's day and father's day, yet she was over whelmingly approved by both libs and pubbies.
Excellent!
No, to make a short story even shorter, five Justices ruled that the town of Kelo had this right and four Justices ruled as if the 14th Amendment somehow applied to the 5th, which it didn't until 1897. In any case, all nine Justices ignored the Constitution and the original intent of the document. It was not meant to apply to the states. If any of the four Justices that voted against Kelo would have used federalism as an argument then I may have had some respect for their decision
Billy Bob, you are surely a reincarnation of Will Rogers, Mark Twain and Teddy Roosevelt, all rolled into one.
You make the difficult so easy to understand, that the ignorant.........the stupid even, are left with no excuse for failing to comprehend.