Friday, July 29, 2005
My Turn at Bat
in National Review Online today: "Little League Language Rights."
|posted by Jim on 2:15 PM|
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Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Roe's Weak Reasoning
A sure sign of judicial activism, either from the left or the right, is when a court issues a ruling, people scratch their heads and say "where did that come from?"
In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court found an absolute right to abortion such that not a single state's 200 years of abortion legislation was in compliance with this new Constitutional "right." Everybody had gotten it wrong from 1776 to 1972, until Justice Blackman set us all straight.
Agree or disagree with Roe but it is a classic case of judges writing new legislation from the bench, not interpreting the law.
Even pro-choice activists seek to change the subject when it comes to a discussion of the legal reasoning of the Supreme Court's ruling in Roe. Their sensitivity on the subject is such that the only acceptable answer to Senator Schumer's "Do you believe that Roe v. Wade was correctly decided" question is "of course."
The problem with that answer is that it will also make a Supreme Court nominee an absolute laughingstock among his peers. A Supreme Court Justice is supposed to be a "lawyers' lawyer." A lawyers lawyer may agree with Roe's result but must hold his nose as to its reasoning.
|posted by Jim on 5:33 PM|
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Inquiring Minds Want to Know
New York's Senior Senator, Charles Schumer, gave Supreme Court nominee John Roberts 70 questions he hoped the nominee would answer. Among them, according to Newsday:
"Do you believe that Roe v. Wade ... was correctly decided? What is your view of the quality of the legal reasoning in that case? Do you believe that it reached the right result?"
Because Roe, grounded as it was "in the penumbras of the Bill of Rights," is notorious for its inept legal reasoning, it has become the litmus test of judicial activism, as Ramesh has suggested ("Roe is a useful albeit imperfect index for the other views we should want in a judge") and Mark Levin has documented, both for NRO.
One suspects another of Schumer's 70 questions is "when did you stop beating your wife?"
|posted by Jim on 4:23 PM|
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Friday, July 22, 2005
FEC Internet Regulation Update: Hearing Transcript Now Online
The transcripts of the Federal Election Commission's June 28-29 hearing on regulating blogs and other uses of the Internet is now online.
You can review my testimony via this Word file here on pages 114-173.
|posted by Jim on 5:50 PM|
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Department of Justice: 87 Bilingual Ballot Investigations in 25 States in 2004
Reports the Los Angeles Times today ("Federal Officials Monitor Voting"):
Federal officials were sent to Los Angeles to monitor the March mayoral election and the May runoff, part of an investigation of municipalities that are required to offer voting materials in languages other than English. On election day in 2004, the department's Civil Rights Division quadrupled the number of elections it monitored — to 87 in 25 states — compared to the 2000 election.
Even communities who thought they were obeying the law felt the wrath of the Federal government:
Just last week, the Justice Department announced settlements with Azusa, Paramount and Rosemead after concluding they had violated the law. Officials in those cities said they were surprised by the charges, believing that their efforts to translate voting materials complied with federal law. All three cities provided sample ballots in Spanish and other required languages to be used as guides for the official ballot printed in English.
Nothing seems to small for the government to criticize: "After the March election, Justice Department officials identified some 'relatively minor' signage that had not been translated, Martinez said, including polling place signs."
How about English classes instead?
|posted by Jim on 5:27 PM|
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Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Schumer's Secret Strength: "Money Changes Everything"
An anonymous e-mailer reminded National Review's excellent Supreme Court blog "Bench Memos" that Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) enjoys a special power over his fellow Senate Democrats:
Not that I would ever by cynical or anything, but could it just be possible that Schumer got to Lieberman [between] last night and this morning to advise Joe that he'd been "misinterpreted"? I'm thinking of two things, (1) Isn't Schumer now the head of the Dems Campaign Committee which recruits candidates and decides how party money is allocated for races (I seem to recall that Schumer had to agree not to run for governor in order to get that high party post in the Senate), and (2) didn't we hear after Lieberman bolted party orthodoxy by voting to confirm Gonzales for AG that the Dems were thinking of a primary challenge against Joe in '06?
The e-mailer is correct. Schumer is chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Seventeen Democratic Senate seats are at stake in 2006. Potential swing votes like Lieberman (CT), Nelson (NB), and Nelson (FL) cannot ignore Schumer's power to ruin their political future if they back a Bush judge he opposes.
|posted by Jim on 3:28 PM|
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Judging Judge Roberts
My health club was oddly empty last night as President Bush announced his nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge John Roberts. So who is this guy? Last November, the New Republic called Roberts a "principled conservative" and added:
John Roberts, 49. U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C., Circuit. Top of his class at Harvard Law School and a former law clerk for Rehnquist, Roberts is one of the most impressive appellate lawyers around today. ...
In another case, however, Roberts joined Sentelle in questioning whether the Endangered Species Act is constitutional under Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce. The regulation in question prevented developers from building on private lands in order to protect a rare species of toad, and Roberts noted with deadpan wit that "the hapless toad ... for reasons of its own, lives its entire life in California," and therefore could not affect interstate commerce. Nevertheless, Roberts appears willing to draw sensible lines: He said that he might be willing to sustain the constitutionality of the Endangered Species Act on other grounds. All in all, an extremely able lawyer whose committed conservatism seems to be leavened by a judicious temperament.
Given that the moderately liberal New Republic thinks so well of Roberts, there seems to be a certain "we hate nominee (fill in the blank)" quality to the early opposition to his nomination.
While People for the American Way and NARAL would undoubtedly prefer another Supreme Court Justice like Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who famously questioned the very idea of Mother's Day, their preferred presidential candidate lost the election last November.
During that same 2004 campaign, President Bush promised to nominate conservative judges. A majority of voters pulled the Bush lever on Election Day. A vocal minority now seeks to use the Senate to veto any conservative judicial nominee. Their cookie-cutter press releases still reek of the storeroom in which they were seemingly placed years ago for just this moment.
Dishonesty watch: Roe v. Wade has the support of six Supreme Court Justices. Even if Roberts is a zealous pro-lifer (of which there is no proof), and he is confirmed by the Senate, Roe can still count upon at least five votes in its favor. While there are other issues at stake in this nomination, Roe is not one of them, no matter how shrilly NARAL might claim otherwise.
|posted by Jim on 9:01 AM|
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Friday, July 08, 2005
Supreme Court Scorecard
just posted here. As rumors fly about other resignations, you might find my thinking about the following of interest:
1) The first person President Bush nominates to replace Justice O'Connor, if
that person is a conservative, will be rejected by the Senate.
(2) The pivotal role of Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter in
sinking the Bork nomination in 1987 and how he could sink a Bush nominee this year.
(3) How a Rehnquist resignation would clear the way for President Bush to nominate
his friend Alberto Gonzales to the Court.
(4) The likely timetable for the nomination and confirmation process.
You can also review the backgrounds of likely nominees as compiled by the New Republic and National Review. (You can't tell the players without a scorecard.)
RedState.org is saying today that two more resignations are coming.
|posted by Jim on 9:40 PM|
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