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A political rant
Jul. 27th, 2005 09:23 amTwo articles on Roberts today prompted this rant, although it's less about him as a person - he's exactly the sort of 1950s throwback that I'd expect to be attractive to the current Administration - and all about the insanity I see in the neocon position on legislation. Insanity that I guess nobody else has noticed, because they haven't said anything about it.
According to the Post, Roberts has argued in favor of stripping the Supreme Court of jurisdiction over certain socially-hot cases, namely abortion, busing, and school prayer. (No word if he intends to recuse himself from such cases as a matter of principle if he is confirmed.) That was back in the Regan era, however, I've heard that the controversy over pharmacists and birth control has led to the House debating a bill that would recuse all federal courts from hearing lawsuits regarding the exercise of a person's religious beliefs.
USA Today put sums up Roberts' stand in plainer English: "Judges should use “restraint” in deciding cases, and that they should be more concerned about strictly following the law than the political implications of their decisions."
Okay, fine.
Except has everyone on the Hill and in the media forgotten the neocon's horror and heartburn when they got exactly what those statements ask for? Two words: Terri Schiavo.
Remember that when the medical arguments didn't hold water in the courts, Terri's parents started filing civil suits saying that Michael had abrogated Terri's religious rights. They applied to the federal court when the state supreme court did not give them the rulings they wished.
But if the federal courts are recused from hearing questions regarding religious beliefs, they could not have taken the Schiavo case. The parents would have had to accept the state court ruling without benefit of appeal.
When the local federal court did not give the parents the rulings they wanted, they appealed up to the Supreme Court, several times. Although their appeals were ultimately fruitless, if the Supreme Court is declared to have no jurisdiction over cases of religious beliefs or over abortion (the Terri=fetus argument was made quite often by her side because Randall Terry was framing the arguments), then the parents would not have even HAD that option.
Finally, the federal judge in the case very clearly showed that he was scrupulously following current laws instead of bending them in the face of overwhelming political, social, and religious pressure.
The neocons got what they wanted in the handling of the case... but that didn't hand them the verdict they wanted.
The same can be said for the shooting down of Judge Roy Moore. The SCOTUS wouldn't take his case, the feds stuck clearly to the law, and he lost. When he refused to obey the decision (somehow avoiding the tag "judicial activist" even though he was clearly disobeying the law) he lost his position... because that is the legal consequence of disobeying orders.
Again, the case was handled exactly as Roberts would seem to wish - no SCOTUS intervention, strict adherence to the law despite the protestors outside the Alabama courthouse and outside the Hill. And yet, not the verdict that was wanted.
So many cases of that decried "judicial activism" are actually cases where the judge strictly ruled on what was written in the law and didn't bow to political pressure. If the marriage law doesn't already state "one man and one woman" here's a newsflash - you have to change the law to put it in because it would be - GASP! - judicial activism to add those words without a referendum. If you want to insist that people read the laws exactly as written, you have to cope with the fact that habit, prejudice, and even social expectation are often NOT actually written down in the words.
Be careful what you ask for, neocons. You may well get it.
According to the Post, Roberts has argued in favor of stripping the Supreme Court of jurisdiction over certain socially-hot cases, namely abortion, busing, and school prayer. (No word if he intends to recuse himself from such cases as a matter of principle if he is confirmed.) That was back in the Regan era, however, I've heard that the controversy over pharmacists and birth control has led to the House debating a bill that would recuse all federal courts from hearing lawsuits regarding the exercise of a person's religious beliefs.
USA Today put sums up Roberts' stand in plainer English: "Judges should use “restraint” in deciding cases, and that they should be more concerned about strictly following the law than the political implications of their decisions."
Okay, fine.
Except has everyone on the Hill and in the media forgotten the neocon's horror and heartburn when they got exactly what those statements ask for? Two words: Terri Schiavo.
Remember that when the medical arguments didn't hold water in the courts, Terri's parents started filing civil suits saying that Michael had abrogated Terri's religious rights. They applied to the federal court when the state supreme court did not give them the rulings they wished.
But if the federal courts are recused from hearing questions regarding religious beliefs, they could not have taken the Schiavo case. The parents would have had to accept the state court ruling without benefit of appeal.
When the local federal court did not give the parents the rulings they wanted, they appealed up to the Supreme Court, several times. Although their appeals were ultimately fruitless, if the Supreme Court is declared to have no jurisdiction over cases of religious beliefs or over abortion (the Terri=fetus argument was made quite often by her side because Randall Terry was framing the arguments), then the parents would not have even HAD that option.
Finally, the federal judge in the case very clearly showed that he was scrupulously following current laws instead of bending them in the face of overwhelming political, social, and religious pressure.
The neocons got what they wanted in the handling of the case... but that didn't hand them the verdict they wanted.
The same can be said for the shooting down of Judge Roy Moore. The SCOTUS wouldn't take his case, the feds stuck clearly to the law, and he lost. When he refused to obey the decision (somehow avoiding the tag "judicial activist" even though he was clearly disobeying the law) he lost his position... because that is the legal consequence of disobeying orders.
Again, the case was handled exactly as Roberts would seem to wish - no SCOTUS intervention, strict adherence to the law despite the protestors outside the Alabama courthouse and outside the Hill. And yet, not the verdict that was wanted.
So many cases of that decried "judicial activism" are actually cases where the judge strictly ruled on what was written in the law and didn't bow to political pressure. If the marriage law doesn't already state "one man and one woman" here's a newsflash - you have to change the law to put it in because it would be - GASP! - judicial activism to add those words without a referendum. If you want to insist that people read the laws exactly as written, you have to cope with the fact that habit, prejudice, and even social expectation are often NOT actually written down in the words.
Be careful what you ask for, neocons. You may well get it.
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