Today's battles over judges have too often broken down along party lines. Democrats sought to filibuster judicial nominees. Republicans worked to guarantee nominees an up-or-down vote. Even the uneasy "truce" achieved last month was the result of politics, not principle. The partisan division is unfortunate, because the judiciary is no place to be playing politics. "Judges shouldn't be liberal or conservative, since the Constitution isn't liberal or conservative," as President Ronald Reagan once observed. Taking the politics out of the judiciary is a key tenet behind the concept of constitutional originalism. That's the idea that judges should issue rulings based...
