The Sotomayor Precedent (Votes to Allow Donations to Terror Groups)

Wall Street Journal ^ | 06/22/10

[MissesBush]

Supreme Court Justices are known by the company they keep, and yesterday's decisions provided a valuable window into the kind of jurisprudence President Obama favors in his nominees. In an unusual hat trick, the Justices overturned three rulings by the notoriously liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals—and in each case Sonia Sotomayor was among the dissenters.

Implication: A Supreme Court crafted in Justice Sotomayor's image would transform the Ninth Circuit's oft-overturned jurisprudence into the law of the land. That's worth pondering as Senators head into next week's confirmation hearings on Mr. Obama's second nominee, Elena Kagan.

Among the Court's three Ninth Circuit smackdowns, two were handed down 6-3. In Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, who Ms. Kagan would replace, joined the majority in upholding a law that banned material support to foreign terrorist organizations. In the Ninth Circuit's alternative universe, U.S.-based groups that want to donate money to the "lawful activities" of groups that also dabble in violence should have the ability to do so.

Money and expertise being fungible, it's an act of high wire legal acrobatics to claim that expert advice or assistance given to one part of a terrorist outfit can be compartmentalized from the group's murder and mayhem. As Chief Justice John Roberts put it, "Such support frees up other resources within the organization that may be put to violent ends."

But according to the dissent by Stephen Breyer and joined by Justice Sotomayor, groups like al Qaeda and Hezbollah should not face restrictions in every instance when "national security concerns conflict with the First Amendment." That's far more generous First Amendment deference than the Court's liberals accorded the speech of law-abiding domestic corporations in Citizens United v. F.E.C, but we digress.

[wac3rd]

And this surprises who?

[indianrightwinger]

She is a dumb fat beatch...!

[ridesthemiles]

I would like to donate Sotomayor to the terrorist group.....