Scotus pick

[BlueK]

Originally Posted by Venkman

No way he's nominated. He had his shot and flamed out. Same with Mitt.

I don't think so. He's working hard right now and has a head start on money and volunteers over pretty much everyone else. Plus he has his own TV show. He's hugely popular in the south right now. He may not get the nomination but he's not going away any time soon.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

It isn't ridiculous when we are discussing Bush. Did you note that intelligence briefing memos all carried biblical scriptures on the cover of the memos, frequently with Bible artwork as well?

I don't know what you think that proves. No one's disputing that religion was a big part of what guided Bush. Personally I think it's quite a jump to go from that to "George Bush, Holy Vessel of God." But this is all highly subjective anyway.

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by Tex

I once read a proposal to amend the constitution to term limit Supreme Court justices. IIRC, the proposal called for an 18-year term rotated in round-robin fashion every 2 years in odd numbered years.

It would mean every president would get exactly 2 appointments per term, in off year elections. The terms are long enough that the odds of one party monopolizing the entire court over multiple successive presidential election cycles are minimal.

I think it's a worthwhile proposal, but I don't think it has ever gotten any traction.

if the Lord doesn't favor term limits, why should you?

[Venkman]

Originally Posted by BlueK

I don't think so. He's working hard right now and has a head start on money and volunteers over pretty much everyone else. Plus he has his own TV show. He's hugely popular in the south right now. He may not get the nomination but he's not going away any time soon.

Oh, he's trying, but he won't get the nomination.

[Venkman]

Originally Posted by Tex

I once read a proposal to amend the constitution to term limit Supreme Court justices. IIRC, the proposal called for an 18-year term rotated in round-robin fashion every 2 years in odd numbered years.

It would mean every president would get exactly 2 appointments per term, in off year elections. The terms are long enough that the odds of one party monopolizing the entire court over multiple successive presidential election cycles are minimal.

I think it's a worthwhile proposal, but I don't think it has ever gotten any traction.

Congress already has the constitutional power to rein them in by limiting their jurisdiction, among other things. Good article by Ed Meese:

http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/3550032.html

Congress should exercise its power to limit the jurisdiction of the courts. The Constitution provides that Congress is authorized to establish those federal courts subordinate to the Supreme Court and set forth their jurisdiction. Congress also has the power to limit the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and regulate its activities. Accordingly, Congress should exercise this authority to restrain an activist judiciary.

[Cali Coug]

The outrage on the right about the Sotomayor pick shows just how radical they have become. Sotomayor is a moderate. She has consistently ruled for corporate interests and is lukewarm on many issues liberals hold dear. I think she will be a fine justice, much in the mold of Souter who she is replacing, but she won't be a person who shifts the Court ideologically. I would have preferred Wood or Kagan, but she brings a lot to the table too. For the right to complain about her being a radical liberal, though, is nothing short of hilarious.

[Cali Coug]

For those of you up in arms about Sotomayor's statement on policy and her remark about her race:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_208531.html

[il Padrino Ute]

Originally Posted by Venkman

I have a problem with the whole empathy thing in a supreme court justice. Doesn't that go against the idea of that lady with the blindfold and the scales?

Yes it does. And the fact that the left has been silent about her blatantly racist comment points out the hypocrisy of liberals.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

For those of you up in arms about Sotomayor's statement on policy and her remark about her race:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_208531.html

Heh, what a ridiculous set of straw men. The HuffPo has taken a few out-of-context quotes that show judges as human beings, and tries to compare that to Sotomayor's shockingly racist comment. It's amazing they can post tripe like this and think it actually illustrates that point.

On the Alito quotations, they conveniently cut out a few things to clarify what he was saying.

For example they omitted the question Coburn asked:

"I think at times during these hearings you've been unfairly criticized or characterized as that you don't care about the less fortunate, you don't care about the little guy, you don't care about the weak or the innocent. Can you comment just about Sam Alito, what he cares about? Let us see a little bit of your heart, and what's important to you in life?"

So he's not answering a question about judicial philosophy, but rather about what he brings to a judgeship as a human being. He makes this clear by emphasizing (also left out by HuffPo): "It's my job to apply the law. It's not my job to change the law or bend the law to achieve any result." He goes on to say that when he handles a case about children, he thinks about it in context of his own children.

This is an answer that reflects a man who recognizes his rulings have an effect on real people, and that those effects should be weighed carefully. It is worlds away from Sotomayor's comment that a Latina woman will reach a better conclusion than a white man.

Give me a break.

The H.W. Bush quote about Thomas is in this same silly vein. As if they expected Bush to come out and say, "Thomas is a cold-hearted, fat-headed jerk." Major selling point, my butt.

And then the funniest of all is the rebuttal to the Scalia quotes posted by another of HuffPo's own people:

In his book "Common Law Courts in a Civil Law System," a published version of a lecture series at Princeton and edited by Amy Guttman, [Scalia] argued the importance of preserving law as the democratically enacted will of the people from the assault of judges who apply common-law approaches to statutory and constitutional interpretation.

In that book he was speaking specifically about a distinction between common-law methods, like the ones that the footnote reprinted in your article deals with, and statutory and constitutional law as interpreted by federal courts. It is my understanding that the federal courts do not make common-law decisions because they only hear cases based on statutory or constitutional claims. Common law, on the other hand, is based on custom. In common law cases, state courts have leeway to interpret the common law and "create" it where precedent has heretofore been silent or where, in the judge's opinion, existing law is inapplicable. His point is that taking this approach to statutory or constitutional interpretation is inappropriate--we have a democratic system in place that settled on a Constitution and statutes with specific textual components, and that judges interpreting them should cleave very carefully to them. Otherwise, he argues, judges are usurping the democratic will of the people.

I don't necessarily agree with all aspects of his argument but it is a powerfully made, brilliant one. It is also a pleasure to read, if law and philosophy are your cup of tea. I recommend it. In any case I thought you should know this because I think the characterization in your article does not, pardon the pun, do justice to Justice Scalia. I don't agree with him, but the critics of Sotomayor are not necessarily being hypocrites in their adoration of Scalia while they revile Sotomayor.

Great link, Cali. Illustrates HuffPo's time-honored work in distortion and selective quotation. No wonder the Looney Left loves it.

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by Tex

Heh, what a ridiculous set of straw men. The HuffPo has taken a few out-of-context quotes that show judges as human beings, and tries to compare that to Sotomayor's shockingly racist comment. It's amazing they can post tripe like this and think it actually illustrates that point.

On the Alito quotations, they conveniently cut out a few things to clarify what he was saying.

For example they omitted the question Coburn asked:



So he's not answering a question about judicial philosophy, but rather about what he brings to a judgeship as a human being. He makes this clear by emphasizing (also left out by HuffPo): "It's my job to apply the law. It's not my job to change the law or bend the law to achieve any result." He goes on to say that when he handles a case about children, he thinks about it in context of his own children.

This is an answer that reflects a man who recognizes his rulings have an effect on real people, and that those effects should be weighed carefully. It is worlds away from Sotomayor's comment that a Latina woman will reach a better conclusion than a white man.

Give me a break.

Nonsense, Tex. Alito was saying exactly the same thing Sotomayor said. Here is the full text of that exchange with Alito:

COBURN: You know, I think at times during these hearings you have been unfairly criticized or characterized as that you don't care about the less fortunate, you don't care about the little guy, you don't care about the weak or the innocent.

Can you comment just about Sam Alito, and what he cares about, and let us see a little bit of your heart and what's important to you in life?

ALITO: Senator, I tried to in my opening statement, I tried to provide a little picture of who I am as a human being and how my background and my experiences have shaped me and brought me to this point.

ALITO: I don't come from an affluent background or a privileged background. My parents were both quite poor when they were growing up.

And I know about their experiences and I didn't experience those things. I don't take credit for anything that they did or anything that they overcame.

But I think that children learn a lot from their parents and they learn from what the parents say. But I think they learn a lot more from what the parents do and from what they take from the stories of their parents lives.

And that's why I went into that in my opening statement. Because when a case comes before me involving, let's say, someone who is an immigrant -- and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases -- I can't help but think of my own ancestors, because it wasn't that long ago when they were in that position.

And so it's my job to apply the law. It's not my job to change the law or to bend the law to achieve any result.

But when I look at those cases, I have to say to myself, and I do say to myself, "You know, this could be your grandfather, this could be your grandmother. They were not citizens at one time, and they were people who came to this country."

When I have cases involving children, I can't help but think of my own children and think about my children being treated in the way that children may be treated in the case that's before me.

And that goes down the line. When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account. When I have a case involving someone who's been subjected to discrimination because of disability, I have to think of people who I've known and admire very greatly who've had disabilities, and I've watched them struggle to overcome the barriers that society puts up often just because it doesn't think of what it's doing -- the barriers that it puts up to them.

So those are some of the experiences that have shaped me as a person.

COBURN: Thank you.

If he doesn't take his experiences into account in deciding a case, then why "must" (his word) he be empathetic? Why does he "have to" (his word) think about people in his own family who suffered... if it has zero bearing on the result? That would be stupid, would it not? He is quite clearly stating that his life experiences lead him to better results in his opinions (if they led to worse results, then regardless of his experiences, he would ignore them instead of "having to" take them into consideration).

Originally Posted by tex

The H.W. Bush quote about Thomas is in this same silly vein. As if they expected Bush to come out and say, "Thomas is a cold-hearted, fat-headed jerk." Major selling point, my butt.

And then the funniest of all is the rebuttal to the Scalia quotes posted by another of HuffPo's own people:



Great link, Cali. Illustrates HuffPo's time-honored work in distortion and selective quotation. No wonder the Looney Left loves it.

As for the HuffPo commentator, they are simply wrong. You can click on the link in the HuffPo article (it only takes a second) and read the opinion in whole. Scalia's textual quote (as opposed to his footnote) is even better, I think:

"She asserts that “the rationale underlying unconstrained speech in elections for political office–that representative government depends on the public’s ability to choose agents who will act at its behest–does not carry over to campaigns for the bench.” Post, at 4. This complete separation of the judiciary from the enterprise of “representative government” might have some truth in those countries where judges neither make law themselves nor set aside the laws enacted by the legislature. It is not a true picture of the American system. Not only do state-court judges possess the power to “make” common law, but they have the immense power to shape the States’ constitutions as well. See, e.g., Baker v. State, 170 Vt. 194, 744 A. 2d 864 (1999). Which is precisely why the election of state judges became popular.12"

To suggest that common law is only made by state judges is incorrect (see, for example, Clearfield Trust Co. v. US).