Thursday, July 30, 2009
Barry / Politics Corker on Sotomayor: Huh?
Posted by Bruce Barry on Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 10:01 AM
"I have determined that Judge Sotomayor's record and many of her past statements reflect a view of the Supreme Court that is different from my own. I view the Supreme Court as a body charged with impartially deciding what the law means as it is applied to a specific case. I believe Judge Sotomayor views the Supreme Court as more of a policy-making body where laws are shaped based on the personal views of the justices."There is, of course, nothing in Sotomayor's extensive judicial background or in her Senate committee testimony that even remotely supports Corker's belief. (Is he so fixated on an out-of-context throw-away line at a legal symposium that it drives his entire judgment of a high court nominee?) Corker's statement reveals deep ignorance of how the Court works and of the history of the modern Supreme Court, wherein conservatives on the bench have repeatedly ignored precedent when it suits their judicial ideology and have moved to undo legislative actions far more often than so-called liberal justices have. I have no problem with Repubs who want to oppose a nominee put forth by a Democratic president because they honestly disagree with her conceptual approach to constitutional interpretation (as many Democrats did in opposing Roberts and Alito). It's disappointing, however, when a senator who is reputed to be thoughtful and perceptive can do no better than meaningless and factually weightless talking points.
Lamar Alexander, meanwhile, announced today that he will vote for Sotomayor's confirmation:
"Even though Judge Sotomayor's political and judicial philosophy may be different than mine, especially regarding Second Amendments rights, I will vote to confirm her because she is well qualified by experience, temperament, character and intellect to serve as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court....Courts were never intended to be political bodies composed of judges 'on your side' who would reliably tilt your way in controversial cases. Courts are supposed to do just the opposite: decide difficult cases with impartiality."
Comments (8)
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This would be outrageous if Bobhorn Leghorn actually thought he'd been elected to represent you and me and Tennesseans. Bobhorn's real constituents are the GOP party bosses, with whom he votes in mindless lockstep.
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Corker's statement is disappointing, just as Alexander's is commendable.
Knowing that his vote won't matter in the end, Corker, I suspect, has been advised to use this opportunity to shore up his support among the Hard Right who have lately suspected him of moderate, cooperative tendencies.
Why does Lamar Alexander support anti-caucasian racism, and hate freedom? I think he's in line a good ole TEA BAGGIN'! Go get him, boys!
"Why does Lamar Alexander support anti-caucasian racism, and hate freedom? I think he's in line a good ole TEA BAGGIN'! Go get him, boys!"
And he voted for the global warmin'!!!! I second the tea baggin'.
Seriously though, I agree with Barry. There is a huge double standard at play. Conservative "originalists" like Scalia are constantly being held up as the ideal by Republicans. What's normally ignored is that Scalia is interpreting just as much as John Paul Stevens or Ruth Ginsberg. He's just interpreting it to his ideals and philosophies. In short, he is just as much as a "judicial activist" as the so-called liberals. It's like fundamentalists who constantly think they are winning a theological debate by declaring that they are only interested in doing "what the Bible says" but ignore the parts that aren't that black and white.
But Corker just shows that you aren't ever going to get the politics out of it. Alexander, and to a greater extent, Lindsay Graham, showed a lot of class this week. They are more conservative than she is but they understand everything isn't about ideology. Kudos to them.
How many Supreme Court nominees have been rejected by the Senate in your lifetime? In mine, I can only think of one - Robert Bork. You can scream about "ideology" all you want, but the simple fact is that Bork lost primarily because, fourteen years earlier, he carried out Richard Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre," rather than honorably resigning like Elliot Richardson and William Ruckelshaus.
So there's some truth to the belief that Bork was the last political casualty of Watergate.
Presidents,understandably, make political decisions in choosing nominees to the Court. That's part of the reason Presidents are elected (and certainly one of the reasons I voted for Obama). It is no less understandable that some Senators make political decisions when they vote up or down on a nominee.
I don't question Bob Corker's right to cast a blatantly political vote against Judge Sotomayor. The Constitution doesn't specify what motives a Senator may have when he "advises and consents."
What makes me want to retch is Corker's clumsy attempt to disguise his motive as something else. As Paul Stanley learned this week, even blatant partisans in Tennessee have a low tolerance for hypocrisy.
Corker and others would do well to learn this lesson.
Mark is right. The Senate's role is to advise AND consent (or not). Two separate functions. Nothing says a senator is obliged to vote in favor even of a well-qualified nominee. If they don't vote to confirm, they may pay a political price, but that's the senator's issue to worry about. I don't have any problem if Corker voted against Sotomayor because he wants someone he thinks will be more conservative. But none of these people has the courage to say what their actual reasons are, when everybody knows them already. "Clumsy" is a good way to describe Corker's explanation.
Reminding us once again that anyone not agreeing with bb is an "obstructionist".
" history of the modern Supreme Court, wherein conservatives on the bench have repeatedly ignored precedent when it suits their judicial ideology and have moved to undo legislative actions far more often than so-called liberal justices have. "
That isn't the determinant of whether a court ruling is judicially activist or not.
The determinant is whether the decision is made based on the actual text of the Constitution as the words contained therein were understood to mean to those who ratified them at the time they ratified them as opposed to the "living document" theory of just making stuff up and claiming it's in the Constitution. Either one of those theories could result invalidating or approving legislative action depending on the case and circumstance.
The New Deal Era court, after some initial resistance, finally caved in and rubber stamped some of FDR's so-called "New Deal" programs that vastly expanded government power. Those were activist court decisoins beacuse they weren't based on the actual text of the Constitution as it was understood to mean by the ratifiers. These decisions enabled legislative bodies to do something they wanted to do.
Fast forward to Roe vs Wade where an activits court dreamed up a "right" to abortion out of whole cloth - something nowhere mentioned in the Constitution. This decisions hindered legislative bodies by invalidating abortion laws.
Both decisions, one enabling legislative bodies and one invaliding legislative decisions are examples of liberal judicial activisim.
Ignoring "precedent" is also not defacto proof of judicial activism. It depends on whether the "precedent" in question was itself an activist court decision.
One if the most sweeping activist notions that allowed government power to expand is the claim that the commerce clause that delegates power to regulate interstate commerce (actual interstate commerce transactions) also allows regulation of anyting that "could have an effect on" interstate commerce. That isn't what the text of the Constitution says and it isn't what the ratifers understood the words to mean.
If some future court were to overturn that "precedent" and vastly reign in government power, that would not be an "activist" decision - to would be a de-activitst one, since the original decision that established the "precedent" was an activist one in the first place.
