Posted on 03/27/2004 7:31:59 PM PST by Pokey78
BERKELEY, Calif.
With two simple acts, President Bush can inoculate himself against one of the most powerful attacks likely to be made against him in the coming campaign: that he does not support Americans' right to privacy.
One act would be to make the following declaration regarding judges: "I will not appoint any person to the Supreme Court or other federal courts who intends to restrict an individual's right to privacy; and I will not demand of any nominee in advance a promise to rule in any specific way on any specific case."
The other would be to endorse the following amendment regarding gay marriage: "Nothing in this Constitution shall compel the federal government or any state to accord the status of marriage, or its benefits or obligations, to any parties other than one man and one woman."
The abortion issue has not yet surfaced in the campaign, but it will. By November, we can expect Democratic Party advertisements featuring the oldest members of the Supreme Court (John Paul Stevens is 83, William Rehnquist is 80, Sandra Day O'Connor is 74, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 71) and asking, "A woman's right to choose is at risk: whom do you trust to appoint these justices' successors?"
On the gay-marriage issue, the president is in grave danger of having signaled disdain for individual privacy — the same right on which Roe v. Wade was based. The amendment now being discussed states that "marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman," unnecessarily limiting both states' rights and individual privacy.
Republican presidents have appointed seven of the nine Supreme Court justices. Of those seven, four are pro-choice, three are pro-life. When a Republican president says he won't demand a promise up front, it's not a subtle evasion, it's an honorable statement that no justice or judge should be compelled to promise in advance how to rule on any case. To make such a demand tears at the heart of an independent judiciary.
Appoint good jurists, and let them make the call. Republican presidents have done that. The result on the Supreme Court is exactly where most Americans are: a lot are pro-life, but more are pro-choice.
This can be contrasted very favorably with demanding a promise in advance. If the Southern Democratic segregationist senators had done that to nominees in the 50's (and they could have gotten away with it then), the great civil rights decisions of that era would never have been made. Earl Warren, appointed chief justice by a Republican president, brought the court to a unanimous decision in Brown v. the Board of Education, ending "separate but equal." But Warren would never have been confirmed if he'd had to promise beforehand how he'd rule on that issue.
President Bush can also reassure voters by the kind of gay marriage amendment he supports. A state can't put adults in jail for private, consensual sex. That is consistent with the same right to privacy that also protects a woman's right to an abortion. For a federal court to force a state to allow gay marriage, however, goes far beyond that — and so would preventing a state from allowing gay marriage if it wished. President Bush would tap into the vast, sensible middle in American political opinion by supporting the kind of constitutional amendment that says just that.
This degree of balance would not lose President Bush the far right, and it would not gain him the activist left; but it would show everyone else that he is a sensible man, whose nominations for the Supreme Court are likely to be in the centrist model of Justices O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy. Both justices were appointed by the last Republican president the Democrats tried to demonize: Ronald Reagan.
Tom Campbell was a Republican congressman from California from 1989 to 1993 and 1995 to 2001.
The Democrats are going to run ads pointing out that the next President is going to pick five Supreme Court justices?
The Democrats!!!???
BRING IT ON!
WTF is Tom Campbell giving advice on how to win elections? Didn't he lose a Senate bid!
Right to choose what?
I'd back that, but I don't view abortion as a privacy issue since it involved two individuals.
"Nothing in this Constitution shall compel the federal government or any state to accord the status of marriage, or its benefits or obligations, to any parties other than one man and one woman."
I think government should be out of marriage althogether. The biggest problem is judicial activism.
"A woman's right to choose is at risk: whom do you trust to appoint these justices' successors?"
And if you piss off the pro-lifers(and I am one), you are dead. A pro-choice GOP'er got 53% IN MY COUNTY(Bush got 59%, Posthumus 62%, Rogers 65% and 77%), during a congressional race because many pro-lifers refused to vote for her. Gun grabbers get the same response. Therfore, HCI's man of the year would likely get the same amount in my county.....people like Tom Campbell.
To make such a demand tears at the heart of an independent judiciary.
Tom, we do not have an independent judiciary. Look at all the judicial activism we have in this country. That is the biggest problem in this country today. More than Iraq. More than terrorism. More than Bin Laden.
a lot are pro-life, but more are pro-choice.
Are more pro-choice? The congressional makeup in the "people's house" says otherwise
Here's the thing with gay marriage. It wasn't a state legislature that enacted it, with a signed bill from a governor. It was JUDICIAL ACTIVISM. It was JUDICIAL ACTIVISM that had the feds outlaw state abortion laws. It was A JUDICIAL ACTIVIST that is trying to ban the pledge. It was JUDICIAL ACTIVIST that has split decisions on the 2nd amendment. THERE'S THE PROBLEM.
Big Tent my @ss
Death for their innocent infants, of course.
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