Posted on 11/07/2001 9:00:15 AM PST by kenade
Edited on 04/23/2004 12:03:53 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The Florida Supreme Court was wrong, but so was the U.S. Supreme Court.
Indignation toward the Supreme Court has been a defining feature of American conservatism since at least the early 1960s, when Chief Justice Earl Warren and his like-minded brethren launched the judicial "rights revolution" that has continued, more or less unabated, up to our own day. With each expansive new ruling over the years--on obscenity, school prayer, the death penalty, busing, abortion and a host of equally inflammatory issues--conservatives have found fresh evidence of the justices' disdain not only for the limits of their own office but, more gallingly, for the views of the American people and their elected representatives. In a controversial 1996 symposium, the religious journal First Things went so far as to wonder whether this "judicial usurpation of politics" should be seen as the "end" of American democracy.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Exactly!! Build a bridge and get over it already!!
I only count four conservatives here. Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas - okay. Kennedy - I guess. But O'Connor? Please.
I made it through the title. Did I miss anything? (I didn't think so)
More fundamentally, there is the question of whether the Supreme Court should have taken any action at all in the Florida dispute. Even the better argument made by the conservative justices, based on Article II, was, for all its force, without precedent.
Oh, Lord. Equal Protection, guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution is blatantly VIOLATED if votes are "counted" under different standards? It was a CLEAR equal protection question.
There can be no doubt that the intentions of the Florida legislature had been perverted, but this alone did not compel the court to take the case or to find an infraction of the Constitution
Again, different counties were "re-counting" using different standards, meaning what was considered a "vote" in Dade county was thrown out in other counties. Thats basically the definition of "violation of equal protection".
and concerns about federalism might well have counseled restraint.
Oh, please. So the author is saying that its ok for a State Court to violate the U.S. Constitution by allowing for clear violations of equal protection, and SCOTUS should excercise "restraint"? I got two words for the author, and the first one starts with an "F".
Moreover, in light of the potential conflicts of interest involved--with candidate Bush having repeatedly declared his admiration for Justices Scalia and Thomas and the justices themselves having an obvious stake in who might be appointed to join them in the future--
Oh, yes. Conservatives always have "conflict of interests", but no liberal court justice could ever have such conflict of interests.
the court would perhaps have been well advised, in effect, to recuse itself.
To recuse "itself"??? What the heck? The SCOTUS is supposed to not accept one of the most improtant cases in the history of the country because the justices are human and have political persuasions?? Let me repeat those two words I spoke of earlier.
Actually, I like this idea!. The Supreme Court recuses itself after the fact. Then the Florida Kangaroo, err, "Supreme" Court, since it consists of seven Democrats, also recuses itself to avoid any appearance of impropriety. Since both of Al Gore's Hail Mary passes now no longer exist, Bush wins. And the Supreme Court is a proud, honored institution once again. Hallelujah!
I read this article as a vindication of the Supreme Court and the election result. The author would have prefered that the Court had let Congress decide the presidency, but he also explains the Court's view that there was a need to prevent what would be a chaotic situation.
The author presents both sides of the story. He explains Dershowicz's view that the conservative justices acted like liberals in both a judicial-activism and equal-protection sense. Dersh is right, they did. However, the author (and I) don't accept that this apparent role-reversal was done for partisan reasons.
I wonder why so many other posters on this thread have find so much they don't like. The author, in my view, gives his opinion that Bush wins no matter what, and that he would have prefered that the U.S. Supreme Court had stayed out of it. Although the election going to Congress could be a real mess, there are provisions in our laws for it, and the Court *could* have let it happen.
TO ALL DEMOCRATS: Here's a quarter, call someone who cares!
Nah, BellSouth just announced that pay phones here in Alabama are going up to $.50.
(I guess they'll have to make a half-a$$ call now.)
Barn Owl
I read this differently. I think the author was refering here, not to the equal-protection argument, but the "perversions of the state legislature's intent." I'm not sure that the remedy for a State Supreme Court overriding its state legislature is necessarily best found in the U.S. Court.
No thanks. I'll pass. I lived through it.
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