Frist and faith

At the Politburo Diktat, there’s a roundup of posts about Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s plan to participate “in a telecast portraying Democrats as ‘against people of faith’ for blocking President Bush's nominees” (to quote the NY Times).

I strongly disprove of the Democrats for filibustering Bush’s judicial nominees. The history here is that liberals have been able to achieve a lot of policy goals through their control of the courts, which have often disregarded the actual law in order to achieve the “correct” (from a liberal perspective) results.

“Legislating from the bench” weakens our legal system. So I support the nomination of judicial conservatives who respect the laws and the Constitution as they are written and also respect the principle of stare decisis. Unfortunately for our legal system, liberals place their policy objectives above a judiciary that rules consistently and respects the original intent of the Constitution.

The religious context here is that liberal judges have crafted rulings that the Christian Right hates, the most obvious example being Roe v. Wade which legalized abortion. As much as I support abortion, as a rational person who has studied the Constitution I have to tell you that the Constitution says absolutely nothing about abortion, and the ruling of Roe v. Wade is completely inconsistent with the rest of modern Constitutional doctrine which generally holds that legislatures can pass any laws that they want.

The divide between Republicans and Democrats is becoming more about religion and less about the reasons why I used to be a Republican. Frist’s strategy to turn the Democratic filibuster into a religious issue should not be the least bit surprising given the trend over the past few decades.

(To be balanced here, for a more left-wing perspective you can read oldman's post at BOP.)

Comments

[Kathy]

The history here is that liberals have been able to achieve a lot of policy goals through their control of the courts, which have often disregarded the actual law in order to achieve the “correct” (from a liberal perspective) results.

Can you give me examples, outside of Roe vs Wade, where liberals have achieved thei policy goals through control of the courts, particularly noting where the disputed judgments are made by judges appointed by Democrats and not Republicans? I hear this claim all too much but have seen no actual data to support it. You cite it as history, so I'm hoping you have actual historical information on hand.

[Half Sigma]

Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) which held that it's unconstitutional for a state to disallow the sale of contraceptives. Griggs v. Duke Power Company (1971) which held that using standardized tests to hire employees discriminates against blacks. To specifically point out two dumb Supreme Court decisions that achieved liberal policy goals.

[boilerman10]

Frist is politicking. By turning towards the evangelical extreme, Frist is gambling that he can bluff through the desired objective of the administration to put its own mark on the judiciary, by hiding behind something considered unassailable.

I disagree with the notion that the evangelical extreme is unassailable, or that the radical clerics swept up in this would-be "Great Social Leap Backwards," which has now turned its jaundiced eye upon judges not in tune with the radical message de jour.

The question of independence of the judiciary is serious, but not since John Adams tried to pack the court with Federalists in an attempt to limit Jefferson has this issue been more glaring. FDR's attempt to pack the Supreme Court was small potatoes compared to the current gambit.

It is the same old attempt to get like-minded political beings into the judicary, pure and simple.

The question thus distills down to whether or not we have a bench that is fair to all, or fair only to the loudest mob, or zeitgeist political ideology of the moment? I prefer fair to all. Some may differ.

However, when it is your turn to stand in the dock, I think fair would be more welcome than mob screaming, wouldn't you, half sigma?

[boilerman10]

Half Sigma, you are half-baked.

Half Sigma wrote in response to Kathy: "Griswold vs. Connecticut...." to pparaphrase.

H/S, please. Griswold was about an asinine law. An unenforcible law about an issue that came between husband/wife and doctor or health care worker. Mr. Justice Douglas was correct in his opinion to have the court put its foot down on blue laws like the anti-contraception law in Connecticut, and the dissenting judges were left to either fumble with juxtapositions or lapse into strict constructionist arguments.

Justices Stewart and Black were all but apologizing for their inability to find why the law was unconstitutional, and their dissenting opinions cleary reflect this.

Let us not spin this decision with the current poppycock oozing out of various Congessional leaders or the commentariat. To sweep Griswold up into Frist's drivel de jour as an example of judicial activism is both wrong-headed, but stupid, plainly stupid.

[Half Sigma]

Boilerman, the law may have been stupid, but that applies to a lot of laws. Douglas' stuff about "penumbras" was completely bogus.

[Kathy]

The reason I ask, and I'm quite sincere in asking despite being a Democrat, is that I've been hearing this claim of judicial activism for quite a while but I haven't heard any information about activist decisions beyond Roe vs Wade. The MA gay marriage case has been cited, but if you look at the details it's clear that was a legal decision and not an imposition of beliefs. The San Fran court threw out "under God" from the pledge, but the Supreme Court tossed that out, so our system worked (yes, they avoided the issue, but they still threw it out). The only other rulings I know of are ones that say religious iconography can't be displayed on public grounds and while that may frustrate the far religious right, their reasons for saying it should don't refer to the Constitution but instead to "natural law" and the intentions of the founders.

The bottom line is that I can't find any real support for the activist judges meme, beyond the fact that the far religious right just doesn't like or agree with the courts. If I understand correctly, the issues are Roe vs. Wade, references to international law, and social issues like the strike down of the TX anti-sodomy law.

I don't know the details behind Griswold, but is the argument here that the state has the right to mandate medical/reproductive decisions?

Finally, I would think that there would be a huge body of activist decisions out there in order to justify the extreme reaction on the right. I don't see it and I'm left believing that the reaction is the equivalent of a toddler's tantrum when they don't get their way. That and a desire to rig the system by stacking it with fellow extremists.

If I'm wrong, I really want to know "where's the beef?"