Posted on 07/21/2005 8:38:52 PM PDT by neverdem
Senator Schumer is planning to use his seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee to reopen a battle he has already lost. "I voted against Judge Roberts for the D.C. Court because he didn't answer questions fully and openly when he appeared before the committee," Mr. Schumer said on Tuesday, referring to President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court. But despite being rebuked by his colleagues for pressing inappropriate questions on Mr. Roberts when he was a federal appeals court nominee, Mr. Schumer has signaled he is going to revisit the same line of questioning. "It is vital that Judge Roberts answer a wide range of questions openly, honestly, and fully in the coming months," the senator said.
Mr. Roberts has been willing to answer questions about his judicial philosophy. "My own judicial philosophy begins with an appreciation of the limited role of a judge in our system of divided powers," he wrote in response to written questions from Mr. Schumer in 2003. "Judges are not to legislate and are not to execute the laws." But Mr. Roberts declined, in response to prodding from Mr. Schumer, to give his personal views in respect of particular decisions. "With respect, Senator, you're getting back in the area of asking me to criticize particular Supreme Court precedents," Mr. Roberts testified in 2003. "I think it's inappropriate because it would be harmful to the independence and integrity of the Federal judiciary. The reason I think key to the independence and strength of the Federal judiciary is that judges come to the cases before them, unencumbered by prior commitments, beyond the commitment to apply the rule of law and the oath that they take."
Explained Mr. Roberts: "When you offer those opinions, it will distort the process. It is either an effort to obtain a prior...
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
Judge Roberts is as brilliant as Chuckie Schumer is dumb. Whata moron!
Schumer is many things, but not dumb. According to a NY Times story, FWIW and I never heard that it was corrected or retracted, Schumer maxxed his SAT. He's playing for the fund raising from and for their base.
Chuckie is bringing a spitwad to a grenade fight.
With all due respect, maxxing the SAT does not mean a person is not dumb. There's dumb and then there's dumb. Chuckie is dumb. Probably has always been so, for sure always will be.
I agree with Schumer. I think nominees of both parties should be inspected much better than they are by the Senate. Then let the voting decide. Why should we the people play Judge Roullette when we don't have to. Why did our side vote to confirm Ginsburg? They shouldn't have.
If a nominee answers in a concrete manner, say about abortion, that could force the recusal of a Justice if an abortion case came before SCOTUS. What good would a 4 - 4 decision be?
IIRC, Ginsburg was a former honcho of the ACLU. Everybody knew how she was going to vote. The pubbies had to be nice guys, and they were played for fools.
watch Sir Edmund Hillary Clinton go have a picnic in the Tall Grass
chumer has a point, kind of. Whether one support the nomination of Judge John Robert to the supreme court, are skeptical, or a scared by him, we should all support efforts to have a nominee state his positions.
Traditionally, nominees have been judged on the basis of their qualifications and character. It is time to re-evaluate this deference.
The Supreme Court, once limited to protecting the Constitution, have become super legislators. Whether the degeneration began with Marbury vs Madison or in the Court-packing crisis of 1937, by the Warren era, the court had become a Judicial oligarchy of nine. Even the supposedly conservative Rehnquist court, has done failed to restore the Constitutional order.
Driven by legal fads, changing mores, and the power to rewrite the Constitution’s meaning, the true Nazgul conjured new “rights” like abortion out of penumbras while property rights, equality under the law, and the First and Second Amendment where interpreted out of existence. (Evidently the First Amendment was really created to protect pornography and the secular humanist state, not to protect political speech or the independence of houses of worship.)
I for one, would like to know if Judge Robert’s thinks that Roe v Wade is “settled Constitutional Law”, despite having no basis in the Constitution.
I would like to know what prior court decisions Roberts disagrees with.
Robert’s defense of Judicial Supremacy in his testimonial duel with Schumer in 2003, is troubling.
"With respect, Senator, you're getting back in the area of asking me to criticize particular Supreme Court precedents. I think it's inappropriate because it would be harmful to the independence and integrity of the Federal judiciary. The reason I think key to the independence and strength of the Federal judiciary is that judges come to the cases before them, unencumbered by prior commitments, beyond the commitment to apply the rule of law and the oath that they take."
Which is it? Is Roberts encumbered by precedent (Roe, Kelo, Grutter …) or is his true commitment to the Constitution, and dare I pray, to restoring our branches of government to the status of co-equals?
Norm, you can sit down now.
I'm beginning to think that this is just another Big Lie that both sides have decided to go along with because it gives them good cover when needed. Justices regularly and forcefully object to decisions with clear explanations as to what they think is wrong. "I believe that such-and-such was wrongly decided and should be overruled." Justices say that sort of thing all the time, and it doesn't "force their recusal" from future cases. Should Thomas and Scalia for instance recuse themselves from this term's abortion cases since both justices have stated that Casey was wrongly decided and should be revisited and/or overruled? Of course not; the contention is downright absurd, really. So why is it taboo for a nominee to state his positions on anything but it's okay for the justices to do it so frequently and explicitly regarding any number of issues? That really doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you ask me.
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