Friday, July 01, 2005

The Supreme Court

(This is a Patriot’s Journey post. Others joining in are Alex, Scott, JimK, and Moorewatch. If you wish to join in, feel free.)

What with all of the talk in the news about the “short list” of people Bush has in mind to replace retiring Justice O’Connor, I thought it would be instructive to consider the role of the Supreme Court in our government.

In most European countries of the late 18th Century, much of the political intrigue revolved around power struggles between the Monarch and the Parliament, and as anyone who has ever sat on a stool knows, two legs is not stable, while three is the bare minimum needed to keep your butt off the ground.

If there is a conflict between the President and Congress, without the Supreme Court, there is no way to resolve that conflict. While there is some merit to the concept of a government too involved in political infighting to fuck around with any of our rights and freedoms, it also tends to paralyze needed responses, except in the most extreme of emergencies (and maybe even then).

But SCOTUS also has a lot of responsibility which comes along with that tie-breaking power. They exist to interpret the laws at the national level, and settle appeals from lower level courts. In order to protect them from the political and popular backlash of unpopular decisions (and their other screw-ups), they were appointed for life, barring any felonious activity on their part.

But it requires the nomination by the President and confirmation by a majority of Senators to become a Supreme Court Justice. It is not something lightly undertaken, nor should it be.

I just hope that Justices in the future remember that they are to interpret the laws, not create them.

And then there were eight

For the first time in more than a decade, we are about to have a vacancy on the Supreme Court as Justice Sandra Day O’Connor decides to step down to spend more time with her ill husband.

She was the only woman on the court for twelve years, until Clinton appointed Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

We wish Justice O’Connor well, and fully expect the Democrats in the Senate to filibuster any nomination whose political opinions aren’t to the left of Teddy Kennedy. (Appointments to the Supreme Court would certainly qualify as “extraordinary circumstances”, according to the definition put out by the Dems. And O’Connor is what everyone is calling “the swing vote”, so expect a vicious fight.)