Posted on 03/23/2008 11:37:11 AM PDT by Clintonfatigued
On New Year's Day, Chief Justice John Roberts, pursuant to his duty to report annually on the condition of the federal judiciary, issued a short and persuasive plea. It was lost in the cacophony of political news.
Besides, why worry about the judiciary? We have Alexander Hamilton's assurances, from Federalist 78, that the judiciary is "the least dangerous" branch of government. Having "neither force nor will, but merely judgment," it "has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever."
Few passages from the Federalist seem as anachronistic today. Almost all social controversies seem to lead to the judiciary, and often up to the Supreme Court. So Roberts' report on the condition of the judiciary should interest a country selecting its next president, who, if he or she serves two terms, will fill about half the 875 seats on the federal bench. Now more than ever, but probably less today than tomorrow, the judicial branch is central to governance.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
This editorial actually covers a large number of issues- the reach of the judiciary, the scope of the Federal governemnt, and the issue of judicial pay.
Also, it’s a reminder of how important it is to keep Democrats out of the White House this year, even if the Republican nominee is not ideal.
Will should stick to bloviating about subjects with which he is better informed. While I think federal judges should get a raise and a substantial one, I do not believe that the quality of the judiciary has anything to do with the ratio of public to private attorneys who are represented. Approximately 90% of a federal trial judge’s work involves knowledge of the Federal Rules of Criminal and Civil Procedure and familiarity with the Federal Rules of Evidence and subject matter jurisdiction.
Clarence Thomas spent nearly his entire career in the public sector. Samuel Alito spent his entire career in the public sector. Roberts was initially nominated for the D.C. Circuit in 1992 at which time he had no experience in the private sector (and I submit that he would have been no less outstanding had he been confirmed then).
In short, if you are looking for a excellent judges, an Assistant U.S. Attorney with 20 years experience and 50+ civil and criminal trials is to be poreferred any day of the week over someone at Jones Day or Skadden Arps who spends 15 years carrying someone else’s brief case.
Thomas Jefferson had their number.
“The great object of my fear is the Federal Judiciary. That body, like gravity, ever acting with noiseless foot and unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step and holding what it gains, is engulfing insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that which feeds them.” —Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1821. ME 15:326
“The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric. They are construing our Constitution from a co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone. This will lay all things at their feet, and they are too well versed in English law to forget the maxim, ‘boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem.’” —Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Ritchie, 1820. ME 15:297
“It has long been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression,... that the germ of dissolution of our Federal Government is in the constitution of the Federal Judiciary—an irresponsible body (for impeachment is scarcely a scare-crow), working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief over the field of jurisdiction until all shall be usurped from the States and the government be consolidated into one. To this I am opposed.” —Thomas Jefferson to Charles Hammond, 1821. ME 15:331
“At the establishment of our Constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means provided for their removal gave them a freehold and irresponsibility in office; that their decisions, seeming to concern individual suitors only, pass silent and unheeded by the public at large; that these decisions nevertheless become law by precedent, sapping by little and little the foundations of the Constitution and working its change by construction before any one has perceived that that invisible and helpless worm has been busily employed in consuming its substance. In truth, man is not made to be trusted for life if secured against all liability to account.” —Thomas Jefferson to A. Coray, 1823. ME 15:486
As a Member of Congress, I will oppose any increase in judicial pay until I am satisfied that the new judges appointed will -- at lease a vast majority of them -- respect and obey the Constitution. Absent that, they can go hang, so to speak.
Congressman Billybob
Hamilton was lying and he knew it. There was no borrowing more money from European banks unless the machinery to take the Constitution away from the people was embedded within.
the judiciary is “the least dangerous” branch of government.
Not when Ruthy consults European law, and not our constitution, to determine constitutionality of a law or argument.
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