The "Supremes"
I came to this site to get some opinions about the upcoming Supreme Court nomination from Progressives. The talk shows and op-ed page are already buzzing about this topic and something tells me that we will all be sick of this subject by the time a nominee is confirmed.
One of the problems in this whole process is the question of what the Senate’s role should be. The Constitution never really spells-out what at “advise and consent” means. Traditionally (through the 200 plus years of our nation’s history), the President submits a nominee to the Senate and the Senate is responsible for the vetting process. The Senate role in the process has been to determine two things; 1) Is the nominee a qualified jurist, 2) Is their personal conduct and history above reproach. Sometime President’s have consulted with the Senate prior to submitting a nomination and sometimes they haven’t. A recent phenomenon in our nations history has been to include a nominee’s ideology as part of the vetting process.
I guess the first question I have is do you think a nominee’s ideology should be part of the process? I myself don’t think it should be. I think by trying to pin a nominee down on his ideology does not serve the nation well. I think it is unfair to ask someone in general how he or she would rule on a segregation case or an abortion case. Those questions are too generalized and anyone that understands the law would understand that a judge cannot really answer those questions without knowing the specifics of a case. I do feel that it is fair to ask a nominee about their opinions regarding how they would have ruled on a case already decided by the Supreme Court. So basically I am saying that a nominee shouldn’t be asked their opinions regarding segregation but it would be a perfectly fair to question their opinion on the Brown v. Board of Education ruling (a specific case where the facts of the case are known). It is unfair to ask how they feel about abortion but it is fair to ask their opinion of the Rod v. Wade decision. I also believe that a good judge won’t let their ideology stand in the way of deciding case law. Judges do it all the time and how good a judge is at their job should be flushed-out in the vetting process. What’s everyone’s opinion on this?
My feelings are that the way the process has been bastardized (taking politics and ideology into account) over the last 20 years results in mediocre Supreme Court judges. The name of the game today is to nominate someone with no or minimal paper trails. This in results in nominees having little or no experience on the bench. Whereas we should be nominating the best and the brightest jurists, we are stuck with judges that have had no or little prior experience. How does this serve the country well? We now have a situation where the great Supreme Court justices like Oliver Wendell Holmes or Thurgood Marshall would never survive the nomination process today. Is this what we want?
The reason I am posting this on a “Progressive” web sites is that I have more questions of the left on this topic than I have for conservatives. For example, one of the subjects that Bush campaigned on was the type of jurists he would pick for the Supreme Court. The voters knew this, a majority of the voters voted for him, the Constitution specifies that the President gets to nominate Supreme Court justices yet some on the left are acting as if none of this is true. It is almost as if the Democrats are trying to re-fight a Presidential election that was decided. When President Clinton nominated his two Supreme Court justices, he nominated two qualified judges that were left of center. I am sure the Republicans didn’t particularly like the nominees and their philopshies, but they were quailifed and their nominations were the Presidents choices and they sailed through confirmation. It seems that the Democrats are unwilling to do the same. In other words its O.K. for a Democrat to pick a liberal judge but a Republican isn’t allowed to select one that is conservative. That sure seems like a double standard to me. Your thoughts?
My last comment has to do with recent statements by some of the Democratic Senators and spokespeople. They keep talking about their fear of Bush nominating someone outside of the “mainstream”. What the battle is really over is the hot button issues of the day like affirmative action, abortion and gay marriage. America is pretty split on affirmative action. Most Americans are not for gay marriage (although a sizeable portion of the population is pro-gay marriage) and although the majority of Americans are for abortion about 40% of Americans are against it. There are enough Americans on both sides of these issues that an opinion for or against any of these issues simply does not fall outside of the mainstream. Am I missing something here? What I feel like a Charles Schumer of a Teddy Kennedy is saying is that anyone who is not in lockstep with their personal opinions on this matter is out of the mainstream which is not only false but extremely arrogant.
A nominee hasn’t even been chosen yet and everybody on the far left and far right are already going nuts. I think everyone needs to take a chill pill and first let the President choose a nominee and then take if from there.
- Login or register to post comments
Printer-friendly version- Send to friend
Join us & contribute
Proud members of the Democratic Party
Copyright 2006 Democrats.com. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy
ddigler The Constitution is a very
The Constitution is a very tiny document. Were it a massive logician's treatise with footnotes there would be little need to question someone’s ideology. As it is, one can not, virtually by definition, leave one’s ideology behind with respect to cases which refer to the Constitution.
The Nation is split ~50% to 50%. The Presidency would have switched hands if the only 1.5% of the people changed their minds. As it is, Democrats represent the majority in the House. Democrats represent the majority in the Senate. Now this is a Republic and not a Democracy. Further, we are a Union of States. I like both of these concepts for reasons I will not go into right now. Taking all of the above into consideration I can tell you what I would do as president: I would pick a nominee who reflected the above.
In 2000 as the vote hung in the balance I also felt (before the SCOTUS even decided) that if I was in Gore’s position and won, I would immediately tell the Nation that one issue cherished by those who did not vote for me would be held in stasus for four years. An olive branch would be needed and I believe should be provided.
Of course nothing like the above happened and we have been ruled by the far Right. You can see the results. What the founders knew and the Neo Cons do not, is that sometimes you must destroy your enemy and sometimes you must learn to live with them. Victory is defeat at times. The Right should take some time to think of just what kind of Nation they are creating. Do they really wish to run Scientists out? To suppress the joy and therefore purse strings of good hearted people on the other side. To open the Nation to a deluge of fights over which prayers will be recited by kids in schools. Etc.
No, sometimes to win is to loose. A leader understands this. A ruler does not.
Problem with the Judges nominated...
is that, if selected and approved, they are there until they die if they wish. In other words, if Bush goes hard right--he is unlikely to go centrist or left--we will be stuck with them for maybe 40 years. This is the true Bush legacy.
Rumors are flying right now. No one really knows except Bush and his inner sanctum, just exactly who will be his nominee. If Gonzales, then we will have an out and out criminal on the court. At the moment, we are enduring two religious nuts: Scalia and Rhenquist. We have Slappy Thomas...who has yet to do anything except take up space on the bench. He is the Republican ideal of a replacement for Thurgood Marshall. Actually, Slappy lives on another planet.
Try and keep in mind that the 'gang of 5' decided--cough cough--that to count to count the votes would be just plain wrong...and then labeled their treason as a one-time only decision. O'Connor will live with this into eternity...as will the rest.
Most of Clinton's better choices were shot down in flames by Gingrich's GOPAC buddies in the senate. At the moment, Bush has an almost 97% approval rate for his nominees. And, most are terrible choices.
The lengthy ramble, to which this is a partial answer, seems to be quite troll-like in it's purpose. The issues of interest to the left are very much food for thought and should be asked--as a litmus test--of any nominee put forth by our criminal in chief. Bush is not at all capable of finding and promoting judges who are likely to rule by constitutional law...but only from the sleezebag right.
To endure someone like Gonsales for a lifetime on SCOTUS is an absolute impossibility.
That would imply comprimise
The two that Clinton appointed, Breyer and Ginsburg, were easily confirmed because he asked Orrin Hatch for recommendations. Hatch recommended both of them, and they eventually went on to be nominated.
What are the odds that Bush would confer with any Democrat, on any topic, under any circumstances? Even if he wanted to, he is now Jim Dobson's bitch. This nominee or the Rehnquist replacement will HAVE to be a winger in order for the '06 and '08 republican candidates to get the full support of the Republican Taliban.
We all know how Bush feels about comprimise. He thinks it's sign of weakness, and won't do it even if it's the right thing to do.
A nominee's ideology and the process
I should think that if the nominee's ideology weren't supposed to be a part of the process, the man making the nominations would not be making ideology part of it. Fact is, that once the nomination is made, ideology has been introduced by the President, and is a subject for debate by our legislators.
Advise and Consent, IMO, is meant to be a stumbling block for presidents who stay in office for eight years with the hopes of filling openings along purely ideological lines.
Those are lifetime appointments. Naturally it would be foolish to allow that a president could stack them with ideological judges. America is served better by Equal Branches.
I suppose when the day comes that the president doesn't nominate ideologues, Advise and Consent won't be such a hotly contested issue. Fact is, I don't think the controversy lies in the laps of Congress, when it is introduced into the equation by the man doing the nominating.
I also think that if George W. Bush nominated someone other than an ideologue, there wouldn't be a problem.
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.
Yes there would: we would
Yes there would: we would all drop dead of heart attacks ;)
Oops!
You're probably right. I forgot about that. ;)
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.
Jim's right
No matter who a President nominates, there would still be partisan attacks.
Senators like the sound of their own voice too much not to speak out.
Does anyone have a sense of history
During my entire adult life, Supreme Court nominations always seem to be nasty and partisan. Does anyone have a sense of history? Has this been the case throughout our nation’s history? My sense is that it is the case. George Washington’s first Supreme Court nomination was rejected by the Senate.
Pundits always like to talk about how nasty politics are but the reality is the some of the Presidential campaigns of the nineteenth century make the last few look tame. I was wondering if that is also true with SCOTUS. Just curious.
I’m not sure, but speaking
I’m not sure, but speaking of history, what impact does the fact that Abortion was legal before, during, and after the creation and signing of the Constitution have on Supreme Court Nominees?
I can’t see how the overthrow of Roe V. Wade can be made compatible with the above, but should the court be intentionaly stacked to run against our early history will government be able to force citizens to take the more dangerous path in all medical situations?
If we get another "oh it only applies in this one case" decision I'm afraid all bets are off for the rule of law and not men.
Jim
They have already done so. Look at the whole medical marijuana ruling. Look I don't get high, so I don't have any skin in the game. But if someone is suffering through their last days on this earth and their doctor feels that they can be comforted by the use of medical marijuana. Furthermore their state's legislature allows for this course of treatment, what right has the Supreme Court to step in and make a medical ruling that also tramples states rights? Looking at recent rulings by the Supreme Court, whether the judges are conservative , liberal or moderate, they all seem to be horrible. This current Supreme Court is absolutely horrible.
The lifetime appointment without recourse creates a lot of problems. I understand why it is setup this way but there needs to be another alternative. I life in Florida and the Florida Supreme Court is a lifetime appointment by the governor. However, every four years, the resident of Florida get to vote on whether or notot retain a Florida Supreme Court judge. They pretty much always vote to retain the judge but at least their is a mechanism to remove truly bad judges. We need something like this at the federal level.
The REAL Problem
What has caused the real problem with the Supreme Court is when they right law versus interpret law. Both sides lambaste the court when it does it but both sides are hypocritical and only criticizes the court when it rights new law that doesn’t conform to their particularly ideology. Both sides don’t mind the court writing law if it conforms to their point of view when in fact anytime the Supreme Court right new law is wrong.
In the end, the legislative branch of government is really the one that is in the wrong. The Supreme Court can only right new law if the Congress falls down on the job and doesn’t fulfill its Constitutional obligation. Look at all of the controversy over the years with cases involving the right to privacy (Roe v. Wade is probably the most famous). The Constitution doesn’t explicitly spell out a right to privacy. I do believe that an overwhelming majority of Americans feel that we should have a right to privacy. Anyone that understands what our Founding Fathers fought for would agree that they would have wanted the citizens to have this right. It’s just that “ye olde parchment” couldn’t have possibly anticipated all of the issues that would arise through the centuries. It is the fault of Congress by not addressing many of the hot button issues of the day that even allows the Supreme Court to step-in and over reach.
The next time you hear a Senator or Congressman on T.V. complaining about the court writing law instead of interpreting law, be aware that those legislators should look into the mirror, they only have themselves to blame. Look at the problems this leads to and the divisions in the country this creates. Abortion is the classic example. In Britain, abortion is somewhat of a hot button issue but nothing near what it is here in the U.S. Why? The decision to legalize abortion in Britain was made in their legislative branch and not by their court system.
I will have to look into
I will have to look into Britain’s handling of abortion. Sounds illuminating.
One quick note: When pregnant, a woman is at risk of dying. An abortion in the early stages of pregnancy is SAFER than going full term. Let’s be clear about the somewhat gentile word “privacy” when speaking of Roe V. Wade. It has a lot to do with deciding not to become a corpse. The term also applies in a broader context but often the preceding is overlooked. Should Roe V. Wade fall I’m sure those with a pension for heavy handed governing will not miss out on applying the new found ruling to other medical situations.
Roe v. Wade
I really don’t want to get too much into Roe v. Wade or the abortion issue, but it is impossible to talk about the Supreme Court nomination process without it since all of the camouflaged rhetoric on both sides is really dealing with abortion. With that said, my feelings about the whole issue is pretty straightforward. I think Roe v. Wade was a horrible ruling for legal reasons (not moral issues). I happen to be anti-abortion but I am also a man and feel that if you don’t have a reproductive system our opinion shouldn’t count.
See Democrats.com position
See Democrats.com position on this issue here:
http://www.democrats.com/abortion
If this node turns into a shouting match about RvW, it will be locked.
Bill
That's what I was trying to say in my last post (that I didn't want to go there). But to deny that R. v. W. isn’t the biggest issue in selecting a Supreme Court nominee is like trying to ignore that there is an elephant in your living room. Just out of curiosity, why does Democrats.com have a no speak policy on that issue? There must be some interesting history there, uh?
The reasoning is as it
The reasoning is as it appears in the link Bill gave.
Jim
Yeah I read the position, I was just saying that you guys probably have some interesting stories as to why that policy was developed in the first place.
It's settled law
There is no point in debating settled law.
If Bush nominates someone because of their views on Roe v Wade, that's an ideological nominee. He will be met with ideological Advise and Consent.
That's how it works.
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.
Settled Law
It may be settled for now, but if people become complacement thinking it's settled law, they will be in for a rude awakening.
Necco
Do you really thing that Bush will nominate someone who has a strong paper trail on to what their beliefs are in this area. He will nominate someone who has never given a public statement on the issue, will dance around it during the hearings and their opinions won't be known until it is time to rule on a case. Thats how it will work.
Not so sure
Not sure Bush is really all that subtle or even has a real concern if his appointment creates a struggle in the Congress. Just based on his history thus far. Of course, he might display some cleverness if his advisors are so inclined. Depends on the level of hubris remaining and the pressure from his 'base' (whether or not he feels the need or desire to attend to their wants).
I think most people would be happier with both the forthcoming process as well as the ultimate effect on the Supreme Court if they simply chose a moderate... but it goes without saying (though I'm about to) that my opinion carries about as much weight as the average nobody (citizen).
Thanks, Necco.
I learned something today;
http://tinyurl.com/cnmtm
Since it is settled
Since it is settled Constitutional Law, as it was at our founding, there was no benefit to debate.
From my own personal perspective, I think Roe V. Wade was a pretty Solomon like decision in part because of what I wrote in the previous post. In addition I do not see cells as human. We will be making them out of inanimate matter within this century. I do view an infant with a brain as human and so I have to go with Einstein; up to a point in the pregnancy the woman has a right to terminate.
Even if I did wish to save all the zygotes I’m afraid I am too spent with other concerns. The bottom 40% of Americans have to share only 1/5 of 1 percent of the wealth. The largest share of National Income since the depression is going to corporate profits instead of being distributed in wages as it used to be. Millions have been pushed into poverty in these last few years. (I might also add that abortions have been increased by the Right whilst decreased in the previous years by the Left.) Tens of thousands of kids worldwide die each DAY due to starvation. Tens of thousands more die due to poor water quality. Our troops continue to be paid below market wages for no reason other than greed. The debt is mounting and they are about to throw on another trillion dollars worth of it. Since there is nothing left to cut in the budget of any magnitude that money will have to be repaid. Who is going to pay it? On and on the downward spiral goes and none of it is necessary.
It is a question of priorities. I wonder what happens in a world that is safe from abortions and dudes getting married? Can the Right find any other place to focus people’s moral outrage so they don’t have to deal with the horrors that surround them? Maybe not, because in my lifetime what I have noticed is that the Right shears the wealth from our Nation and the Left grows it back. Ready for the next shearing. From the greatest surplus in American History to the greatest Deficit.
Jim
I depressed after reading your post. You paint a bleak picture although I know you are probably correct. As far as Roe v. Wade, like I said in an earlier post the opinions of those of us that do not have a reproductive system shouldn't count, so I defer to our women citizens on this one.
ddigler, I would like to let
you know,( without incurring the wrath of the Sun God)
that from a woman's perspective, I appreciate your last comment.
OK, that's enough out of me on this one!
This is the quote.
kwahlf
No Problema.
First of all ddigler, to
First of all ddigler, to most of us an "Independent" is just another definition for "unwilling to take a stand." It appears that you have come here to pick a fight, and disrupt this blog with carefully crafted "questions." We have seen this tactic before, so be assured that you are not that inventive.
If you wish to remain here and discuss Democratic issues and positions, that is fine. Otherwise, your stay is becoming shorter by the minute.
Checks and balances
I don't think that anyone rights laws, they "write" laws. The legislators are elected officials who are charged with representing the people who elected them. They are our voices in the government. Supreme Court Judges who are appointed for life are not elected and are supposed to interprete the laws to determine if they are constitutional,meaning that the laws conform to the spirit of the constitution. Since the constitution is much more than that grand old parchment,this is where the difficulty begins. Laws have to be written to create, protect, defend ,etc. something or someone without infringing upon the rights of others. That is why one of the most important qualities of a Supreme Court justice should be his/her intellect and knowledge of the constitution and its history. Everyone knows that Earl Warren was a Republican but his years as Chief Justice were marked by many "liberal" decisions because the decisions insured that everyone, no matter what race he/she was, was allowed the right to vote. the founding fathers believed in the laws of nature and that everyone had a "right" to life , liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If people consider this too liberal a concept, they are definitely in the wrong country. Our senators must ask questions of the nominees to determine if their ideology will prevent them from protecting that the constitutional rights of all Americans are protected. By the way, Dirk, is this your real name? You haven't been in any movies right? Your name sounds familiar.
Cleo
It goes back to what I was saying earlier. In my humble opinion, the court decision that cause the biggest problems are in cases where congress should have acted and clarified the constitution and chose not too. As far as my name, no Dirk Digler isn't my real name, it's the name of the porn star played by Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights.