Note: The Supreme Court section has moved to its own page.
Recent rulings about the Ten Commandments have brought public scrutiny to the role of federal judges.
There is also a page nearby about the Property Seizures and the Supreme Court's recent eminent domain ruling.
There is a separate page about lawyers in general and frivolous lawsuits in particular.
This is an excellent commentary on judicial activism, criminal justice, and media sensationalism:
Law or soap opera? The Scott Peterson case demonstrates that legal processes can be excessive, not only in terms of time, but also in terms of the kinds of non-legal considerations and indulgences that are allowed into the administration of justice. Courts do not have unlimited resources or unlimited time. How many other cases must be put on hold while emotions are vented?
Editor's Note: Scott Peterson got a much better deal than Terri Schiavo, who was intentionally starved to death in Florida, at the insistence of her estranged husband, who at the same time was also someone else's common law "husband". You can bet that if Terri Schiavo had been a Guantanamo detainee, or a beached whale, there would have been no shortage of lawyers coming to her defense.
The Judiciary's Culturally Sanctioned Allergy to Christianity Flourishes. Does anyone find it ironic that the very people who protest so loudly over supposed affronts to Islamic religious expression are often so hostile to the slightest Christian religious expressions — even incidental expressions? The left is going bonkers over opposition to the ground zero mosque in the name of religious freedom, but the left's assault on Christian liberties proceeds unabated. One very recent example is the ruling by a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that memorial crosses erected and displayed along Utah public roads to honor fallen state highway troopers must be removed as unconstitutional.
More about the proposed Ground Zero mosque.
Judge overturned Prop. 8 while claiming he wasn't changing anything. Judge Vaughn R. Walker's opinion purporting to strike down California's Proposition 8 ballot initiative banning gay marriage is a screaming advertisement against the appointment and confirmation of renegade judicial activists like Elena Kagan. The labyrinth of twisted reasoning Walker constructs in his opinion is a testament to the depth of deceit that inhabits the modern left's thought processes.
Judicial Tyranny Strikes Again: Homosexual Marriage Imposed on D.C. Voters. In a 5-4 decision, the D.C. Court of Appeals held today [7/15/2010] that "We the People" do not have the right to vote on the issue of same-sex "marriage."
9th Circuit finds a right to lie. In a major First Amendment decision Tuesday [8/17/2010], the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit struck down a federal law making it a crime to falsely claim a military honor or decoration. In a 2-1 ruling, the appeals court panel found that the poetically named Stolen Valor Act is unconstitutional.
Court strikes down mall talk rules. A California appeals court struck down a mall's rules banning strangers from talking about subjects other than the mall while inside the facility. ... The mall's rules, which were previously upheld by Placer Superior Court Judge Larry Gaddis, allow for conversations between two strangers on non-mall related topics only if an application is submitted 4 days in advance and approved by officials.
[Emphasis added.]
Judge rules it's ok to lie about military service. A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided in a 2-1 decision that it's OK to lie about your military service. Their rational was that fibs about one's military service don't actually harm anyone. This ruling contradicts years of precedent where the Supreme Court has explicitly stated that false statements of fact are not entitled to First Amendment protection.
9th Circuit: Mud from logging roads is pollution. A federal appeals court has decided that mud washing off logging roads is pollution and ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to write regulations to reduce the amount that reaches salmon streams.
Federal judge strikes down California's ban on same-sex marriage. A San Francisco federal judge today [8/4/2010] struck down California's ban on same-sex marriage, concluding that it tramples on the equal rights of gay and lesbian couples and that they are entitled to be married throughout the state.
The Judge Has Spoken — Whether You Like it Or Not. While Proposition 8 opponents style themselves as champions of tolerance, they've chosen judicial fiat over the slower, surer route of persuasion. Californians want to be sure that tolerance will be a two-way street. Will the courts force people to approve of same-sex marriage in the same fashion that San Francisco Superior Court judges voted to bar judges from taking part in the Boy Scouts because the Boy Scouts barred gays? Will advocates use the schools to promote same-sex marriages with young kids? These aren't unreasonable questions.
One Leftist Judge Slaps Down Seven Million Voters in California. You people know this as well as I do. The American people are boiling. The American people are furious. My e-mails are unbelievable. This federal judge yesterday, this decision, Prop 8, California, has just put people over the edge, and all of these decisions are coming one after another from all corners of the federal government. It's as if we have absolutely no say in what is going on all around us. Decisions are being made for us, in lieu of us and imposed on us.
Was Judge In California's Gay Marriage Case Truly Impartial? You do not have to be a legal expert to conduct this experiment. You can even try it at home. Slog through Judge Walker's 136-page opinion and then ask yourself: why does this document read like the battle report of a search-and-destroy mission? One would think, for example, that there are some rational bases for saying that marriage is what our society and our law have understood it to be for a few hundred years: the union of a man and a woman. Not in Judge Walker's court.
Disoriented Judge. All federal judges must swear they "will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me ... so help me God." But can a judge given the opportunity to knock down a law that declared homosexual marriages invalid be impartial when he himself is openly homosexual?
Out Of Thin Air. The imperial judiciary has struck again, with Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker striking down California's Proposition 8, passed in November 2008 with 52% of the vote, on the grounds that the voter-approved law was a violation of gay couples' civil rights. Walker's ruling follows a Massachusetts federal judge's ruling last month that the state's married gay couples, also established by judicial fiat, were being wrongly denied the financial benefits of marriage because of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
Incremental Tyranny. I hope the people of California have learned their lesson. All this silly voting stuff is "so Twentieth Century". Voting? We don't need no stinkin' voting. All we need is the "enlightened wisdom" of the judiciary.
Jefferson was Right to Fear the Courts. In a little more than a week, federal judges — liberal activists both — have ruled to stay or strike down state laws in defiance of the will of the people. Arizona's immigration law was first. Next was a ruling by a federal judge to strike down California's Proposition 8, which voters there passed to define marriage between a man and a woman.
California's bumbler in a black robe. After reading Walker's decision, Ed Whelan, a constitutional law authority and president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, concluded that Walker was "intoxicated by his own bias." Yet, this latest decision marks the third time Walker has been rebuked by appellate courts since he was appointed to the federal bench by President Reagan.
How to Stop the Tyrannical Judiciary. What do we call a system of government in which an unelected cadre of self-professed wise men make decisions for a nation of millions, all the while insulting those millions as ignoramuses? We used to call it tyranny. Now, apparently, we call it an "independent judiciary." At least that's the way the left sees it.
Lack of Intellectualism Is Losing the Marriage Debate. Judge Vaughn Walker's legal ruling striking down California's Proposition 8 certainly was no triumph of intellectualism. ... Among other things, he said that opposition to faux marriage was ultimately based on "moral disapproval." While this is a rhetorically compelling argument in an age where "morality" has become a dirty word, it is also nonsense.
Court Spits in Voters' Eyes ... Again. California voters have long been scoffed at by activist judges substituting their own agenda in place of the law. The ignominious Jerry Brown state Supreme Court appointee, Rose Bird, habitually overturned death penalty cases because she personally didn't approve of the death penalty. The people of the Golden State eventually threw her out of office. The California voters passed Proposition 187 in 1994 by a margin of a mere 58.93%. Prop 187 would have, in accordance with Article II, Section 8 of the Constitution, denied taxpayer funded benefits to illegal aliens. It took just three days for a federal district court judge to spit in the eyes of the voters and enjoin enforcement of a statute passed by a clear majority of the voters.
Cherry-Picked Constitutionality. A federal judge ruled that only a state gets to define what "marriage" is in that state, and the federal government can't overrule it. ... At least two things about that line of reasoning are very bothersome, regardless of your opinion of gay marriage. First, it was not quite the "state" of Massachusetts that redefined marriage in this instance; four justices on its supreme court did. The state legislature did not redefine marriage. There was no popular vote to redefine it. The governor never signed legislation to redefine it. Four justices on the state supreme court did this. And now we have a federal judge ruling that the federal government must honor that decision of state judges. At this point, we have a total of five people redefining marriage as a legal institution for the remaining 310 million of us.
Values Voters and Limited Government. I'm all in favor of judges finding unconstitutional laws unconstitutional. [But] Liberal statists and Senate Democrats fearful of the country's burgeoning awareness of our decades-long drift away from the Founders' vision know that they need judges to protect big government. The left is entirely comfortable with liberal activist judges willing to accede to or create government power, as opposed to originalist judges who recognize constitutional limits on government power.
Residents get 6 votes each in suburban NY election. [Arthur] Furano cast multiple votes on the instructions of a federal judge and the U.S. Department of Justice as part of a new election system crafted to help boost Hispanic representation.
The Editor says...
Why stop at six votes? Why not give a dozen votes to everyone who is not (for example) a white male? How about allowing ten votes per Democrat, and one vote per Republican? All in the interest of fairness, of course.
Goodbye to One Man, One Vote. If you thought that "one man, one vote" reflected the full flowering of representative democracy, think again. In the village of Port Chester, N.Y., just a few towns north of my locality in Westchester County, there is a new system. It's "one (minority) man, six votes" — brought to us courtesy of the U.S. Department of Injustice and a lunkhead of a federal judge named Stephen Robinson.
How Is Rigging Elections Fair to Immigrants? A Nebraska town wants renters to prove they are in the country legally, and Port Chester, N.Y., was forced to swallow a goofy voting scheme that makes sense only if the aim is to erase the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants. Under the plan, imposed by a federal judge in response to a 2006 Justice Department civil-rights suit, each voter in the board of trustees election got six votes. A voter could give all six votes to one candidate, or divide them among several.
Vote system that elected NY Hispanic could expand. The court-ordered election that allowed residents of one New York town to flip the lever six times for one candidate — and produced a Hispanic winner — could expand to other towns where minorities complain their voices aren't being heard.
Progressives and the Declaration of Independence. In her Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Elena Kagan said she is a political Progressive and was dismissive of the Declaration of Independence, relying solely on the Constitution for legal decisions. That's a consistent position; Progressives don't like what the Declaration declares. U.S. courts follow stare decisis, meaning "to stand by that which has been decided before." They are supposed to follow established precedents; judges aren't to make things up as they go along. There are legislators for that. That leaves Progressives like Ms. Kagan stranded.
The worst judiciary ever. The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday [6/17/2010] forwarded to the full Senate the appellate judicial nomination of U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny, whose self-proclaimed sympathy for "sexual sadists" knows few bounds. Thus proceeds President Obama's attempt to remake the federal judiciary into a den of criminal-coddling left wingers completely alien to most Americans' sense of equal justice under law. Together, these nominees are dangerous to the American legal system.
Sen. Sessions: President Obama Wants Judges to 'Promote Agenda'. As President Obama considers his options for a Supreme Court vacancy, Senate Republicans are preparing to use the upcoming hearings to explore what they say is the expanded role of government under the Obama presidency, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee told ABC News.
Which side are you on? NY judges consider joining teachers' union. In a remarkable display of self-degradation, some New York State judges are considering joining the United Federation of Teachers, a highly politicized, big bucks political donor, in an effort to raise their pay.
The End of Our Legal System: Judges Joining Unions? Unions are meant for one thing and one thing only: to "get" for its members. They have one purpose and that is to take as much from an employer as they can take, to get as much money and benefits as they can get away with. Unions are not interested in assuring quality workmanship, they are not interested in offering quality to customers, and they most certainly aren't interested in efficiency and modernization. Unions have but one purpose, to extort as many goodies as possible from an employer regardless of what it does to a business or a profession.
Supreme Court To Face Mecca. The reason Democrats are obsessed with controlling the courts is that unelected judges issuing final edicts is the only way liberals can attain their insane policy agenda. No group of Americans outside of Nancy Pelosi's district would vote for politicians who enacted laws similar to the phony "constitutional rights" liberal justices proclaim from the Supreme Court.
Don't rush to judgeship for Liu. The hypocrisy of Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy knows no bounds. The Vermont Democrat insists on expediting a hearing for the wildly leftist, fundamentally dishonest appellate court nominee Goodwin Liu before committee members have received adequate access to Mr. Liu's records. Throughout his career, Sen. Leahy has insisted on seeing — and sometimes leaking — records that properly should remain private. Yet in this case, concerning records everybody agrees should be public, the senator acts as if they are irrelevant.
The Constitutional Crisis and the Security Crisis. [Scroll down] First, there is the matter of the ongoing constitutional crisis that, as al-Qaeda's attempted Christmas Day attack amply demonstrates, is now endangering our nation. The Constitution gives the political branches plenary responsibility for the conduct of war. The conduct of war includes the detention, trial, or release of enemy combatants. The federal courts have no role except the one they have usurped. This brazen power grab flouts the bedrock constitutional separation of powers, and the political branches do not have to abide it. Indeed, as national defense is their chief responsibility, it is their duty not to abide it.
Excellent!
Confiscating property: The Court's decision helps explain the vicious attacks on any judicial nominees who might use framer-intent to interpret the U.S. Constitution. America's socialists want more control over our lives, property and our pocketbooks. They cannot always get their way in the legislature, and the courts represent their only chance.
Not everything is unconstitutional. It's interesting that [Judge Nina] Gershon brought up the matter of separation of powers, since it's doubtful she understands them herself. Congress has the power to appropriate tax money, not the judicial branch. Gershon may be overstepping her judicial authority by dictating to Congress whom the body can and cannot fund. And she's yanked yet another right out of thin air: the "right" to federal funding. The arrogance of some federal officials — that they have a right to taxpayers' money — continues unabated.
The article above is really about ACORN.
Race & Gender of Judges Make Enormous Differences in Rulings, Studies Find. A judge's race or gender makes for a dramatic difference in the outcome of cases they hear — at least for cases in which race and gender allegedly play a role in the conduct of the parties, according to two recent studies.
Liu Nomination Pushes 9th Circuit Farther Left. By nominating UC Berkeley Law Professor Goodwin Liu to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Barack Obama is working to push the nation's most liberal — and most overturned — court even further outside the mainstream of American jurisprudence. Liu, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, will face certain opposition from many Republicans in part because of his many liberal positions but also because he took an active role in opposing Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
A constitutional right to welfare? Another day, another radical judicial nominee. President Obama once again has nominated for a federal judgeship a lawyer whose own words demonstrate unfitness for the position. In the case of Goodwin H. Liu, nominated on Feb. 24 for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the substance behind the words is even worse than the verbiage.
Federal judge rules Day of Prayer unconstitutional. A federal judge in Wisconsin ruled the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional Thursday [4/15/2010], saying the day amounts to a call for religious action.
Gender Bias Bunk. [Scroll down] Any engineering, physics, math or computer-technology program that moves too slowly toward gender parity is inviting a government investigation and loss of funding. The nation's leading programs are under pressure to adopt gender quotas and to rein in their competitive, hard-driven, meritocratic culture — a culture that has made American science the mightiest in the world.
Cut the Power of the Family Courts. Do you think judges should have the power to decide what religion your children must belong to and which churches they may be prohibited from attending? We have long suspected that family courts are the most dictatorial and biased of all U.S. courts, routinely depriving divorced fathers of due process rights and authority over their own children, but this December a Chicago judge went beyond the pale.
Justice concludes black voters need Democratic Party. Voters in this small city decided overwhelmingly last year to do away with the party affiliation of candidates in local elections, but the Obama administration recently overruled the electorate and decided that equal rights for black voters cannot be achieved without the Democratic Party. The Justice Department's ruling, which affects races for City Council and mayor, went so far as to say partisan elections are needed so that black voters can elect their "candidates of choice" — identified by the department as those who are Democrats and almost exclusively black.
Justice Department Says Blacks in N.C. Town Can't Get Elected Without Democratic Party Label. The U.S. Department of Justice is refusing to allow the town of Kinston, N.C., to hold nonpartisan local elections on the grounds that African Americans cannot win election without being listed as Democrats on the ballot.
Another judicial radical. Another day, another Obama nominee who doesn't appear to love America. Another nominee who thinks the United States is inherently racist. Another nominee who thinks that judges should let their "ethnic and racial background" have an effect on how they conduct their trials. President Obama's radicalization of American government needs to be stopped.
Jesus, no, but yes to Allah. Senate Democrats are proving once again that no judicial nominee is too extreme for them to stomach. A move seems to be afoot to open debate on the Senate floor this week on the nomination of David Hamilton of Indiana to the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. This judge is a radical's radical.
Another Radical Judge. Yet another judicial nominee seeks to impose the "empathy" standard on the courts. He thinks judges should base rulings on a plaintiff's status, legislate from the bench and amend the Constitution. Indiana federal judge David Hamilton stands poised to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate to assume a seat on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals serving Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. He's a former fundraiser for Acorn and a former leader of the Indiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
How Joe Biden Wrecked the Judicial Confirmation Process. Before Judge Bork's nomination, Mr. Biden had said he would support him. And why not? He was widely considered a dazzling legal mind and had even received (during his confirmation to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals) a rating of "exceptionally well-qualified" from the liberal-leaning American Bar Association. ... But by the time of the actual nomination, Democrats were promising to play "hardball" with President Ronald Reagan's nominees and Mr. Biden was running for president.
The American Bar Association exposes its liberal bias once again. I wrote here about Goodwin Liu, the leftist law professor nominated by President Obama for a spot on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Among my observations was that Liu has only practiced law in earnest for two or three years. The rest of his time since graduating from law school has been spent as a law clerk or a law professor. Moreover, Liu appears to have no trial experience. Nor, as far as I can tell, has he ever argued a case before a court of appeal. ... Yet the ABA has rated Liu "highly qualified."
A Tangled Web. The original Civil Rights Act of 1964 was very straightforward in forbidding discrimination. But, even before that Act was passed, there were already people demanding more than equality of treatment. Some wanted equality of end results, some wanted restitution for past wrongs, and some just wanted as much as they could get. Opponents of the Civil Rights Act said that it would lead to racial quotas and reverse discrimination. Advocates of the Act not only denied this, they wrote the language of the law in a way designed to explicitly prevent such things. But judges, over the years, have "interpreted" the Civil Rights Act to mean what its opponents said it would mean, rather than what its advocates put into the plain language of the legislation.
The Left's Invisible Constitution: Barack Obama recently said "I want judges who have a heart, have an empathy for the teenage mom, the minority, the gay, the disabled. We want them to show empathy. We want them to show compassion." However, a true nation of laws requires that judges do their best to interpret laws as they are written, or, at the very least, to remain as restrained as possible in deviating from the text, not to inject their own personal view of what is just or compassionate.
Judge puts restraining order on Ill. abortion law. Just hours after a state board voted Wednesday [11/4/2009] to allow the enforcement of a long-debated Illinois law requiring a teenage girl's parents be notified before she has an abortion, a judge issued a temporary restraining order putting the measure back on hold.
Christian Girls, Interrupted. Two Christian girls. Two sets of distraught parents. And two state courts smack in the middle of it. One of these courts is in New Hampshire, where a judge recently ordered that home-schooled Amanda Kurowski be sent to public school. The order signed by Family Court Justice Lucinda V. Sandler says the 10-year-old's Christian faith could use some shaking up — and that the local public school is just the place to do it.
U.S. Courts Should 'Download' International Law into Domestic Law, Obama Nominee Says. Harold Koh, nominated by President Barack Obama to be the State Department's top legal adviser, once argued that U.S. federal court judges — including the Supreme Court — are the "critical link" between international and domestic law and play a critical role in bringing international norms into force as domestic law.
Will Iowa Become a Homosexual Mecca? Shock, amazement, anger, disgust. All were feelings experienced by Iowa conservatives last Friday [4/3/2009] after the state Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision which allows same sex marriages in the Hawkeye state. The Court struck down the existing law which states, "[O]nly marriage between a male and a female is valid," proclaiming in a sixty-nine page decision that the statute was unconstitutional. ... The Court ignored both Iowa public opinion and its constitutional duty to interpret the statute rather than enacting public policy.
Iowa, A Great Place To Be From. The state in which I was born and raised has become the latest judicial laboratory for deviant social policy. In a unanimous vote last week, the Iowa Supreme Court created the "right" to same-sex marriage. As is always the case, the voters had no direct say in the matter. Their state senators and representatives had acted responsibly on the matter several years ago by defining marriage as what it is — a union of one man and one woman. But that no longer matters in America, where we now live not in a representative republic but rather under a left-wing judicial oligarchy.
Judge Shocks America's Conscience. Recently, a federal court issued a decision that may be the next Supreme Court case in the War on Terror. The court ruled that terrorists held by the U.S. military in Afghanistan are entitled to the writ of habeas corpus, extending a panoply of rights to these detainees. This ruling could have a stunning impact on this and future wars, and bears out just how wrong last year's major Supreme Court habeas case was.
Judge Rules S.C. Not Allowed to Issue License Plates With Cross. A federal judge ruled Tuesday that South Carolina can't issue license plates showing the image of a cross in front of a stained glass window along with the phrase "I Believe."
ACORN's Federal Judge: Giving the term judicial activism new meaning, President Obama has nominated an ACORN loyalist to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, the Chicago Tribune reports. ... The Judicial Confirmation Network notes that [David F.] Hamilton previously worked as a fundraiser for ACORN, the radical direct-action group that not only resurrects the dead and gets them to the polls every election but also shakes down banks and pressures them to make home loans to people who can't afford to pay them back.
A Legal Grand Slam! The advocates for same-sex marriage simply did not understand that courts generally do respect their role and the separation of powers. Simply put, courts cannot legislate.
Seeking to Shift Attention to Judicial Nominees. "Judges are what you refer to as a 'last 30 days' issue, and it's hard to know how it might play," said Evan Tracey, the head of CMAG, a company that monitors political advertising. "Now is the time when you start hearing messages that connect with the single-issue core voters — guns, abortion, civil rights. And it's all about judges."
Judges as social engineers: There is a growing tide of resentment against judges who clearly overstep their bounds in attempts to do that which they were never legally empowered to do, that is, act as social engineers instead of interpreters of law. These "activist" judges think nothing of stripping one group of citizens of their civil liberties, in order to grant special rights to another group — just because it seems like the popular thing to do.
The War Is Over. The War on Terror has radically altered the compact between the American people and their government by dramatically changing the nature of the U.S. courts. Until this new, unaccountable monster is caged, it will continue to devour our political community's capacity to wage war and to defend itself. And that caging had better happen soon, because the word "war" in this context refers only to our nation's forcible military response after the 9/11 attacks finally made the atrocities of radical Islam impossible to ignore any longer.
Quicksand for Judges: Congress returns from August vacation this week, but for Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee the summer winddown kicked off closer to April. By the time they left town for recess, they had chalked up one of the slowest rates for judicial confirmations in modern times. Since the beginning of the year, the Senate has confirmed a total of four nominees to the federal circuit courts….
Judge Orders Homosexuals' Names Placed on Adopted Boy's Louisiana Birth Certificate. The State of Louisiana is expected to appeal a federal court decision last week ordering the state's Office of Vital Records to change a child's birth certificate to list two homosexual men as his parents.
Good Judges Are More Important Than Ever. All nominees must be decent human beings that meet the highest standard of competence, honesty and integrity. But they must judge neutrally, without fear or favor, and without regard to what interests may be before them and their personal feelings for the litigants or the causes they may represent. Justice and the rule of law demand no less. The Constitution and laws must be interpreted as they were written, not as judges think they should have been written.
California Supreme Court allows good Samaritans to be sued for nonmedical care. Being a good Samaritan in California just got a little riskier. The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a young woman who pulled a co-worker from a crashed vehicle isn't immune from civil liability because the care she rendered wasn't medical. The divided high court appeared to signal that rescue efforts are the responsibility of trained professionals. It was also thought to be the first ruling by the court that someone who intervened in an accident in good faith could be sued.
Judicial Tyranny: The New Kings of America. Featured in this ground breaking book is the insight of Mark I. Sutherland, Dr. James Dobson, Chief Justice Roy Moore, US Attorney General Ed Meese, Ambassador Alan Keyes, Dave Meyer, Phyllis Schlafly, the Honorable Howard Phillips, Alan Sears, William Federer, Ben DuPre, Rev. Rick Scarborough, David Gibbs, Mathew Staver, Don Feder and Herb Titus. This book covers everything from problem judges, to international law, to congressional solutions, to the misunderstood concept of the 'rule of law' and is written for the everyday citizen.
Examples of judges legislating from the bench:
Judge: New money design should accommodate blind. When the next generations of $5, $10, $20 and $50 bills roll off the presses, there should be some way for blind people to tell them apart, a federal judge said Thursday [9/4/2008]. U.S. District Judge James Robertson said he would not allow the Treasury Department to go at its own pace as it complies with a May ruling that U.S. paper money discriminates against the blind.
Baggy pants ban 'unconstitutional'. A Florida judge has deemed unconstitutional a law banning baggy pants that show off the wearer's underwear. A 17-year-old spent a night in jail last week after police arrested him for wearing low pants in Riviera Beach, Florida. The law banning so-called "saggy pants" was approved by city voters in March after supporters of the bill collected nearly 5,000 signatures to put the measure on the ballot.
Free the California 52,000? A panel of three federal judges is holding a trial to determine whether to free 52,000 of California's 172,000 prison inmates to alleviate overcrowding. You might be asking yourself: Who elected these guys to run California? One of the three judges, U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson, determined in 2005 that California's prison health care system is so bad that it's unconstitutional.
It's the judges who need a legal guardian. Rule of law in this country has been replaced by rule of judges. In case after case, citizens have watched as judges assumed sovereignty and ruled, like Humpty Dumpty, that the law is "just what they choose it to mean — neither more nor less." The latest case of such legal hubris comes from Missoula, Montana, where a judge has ruled that a parent is whoever he decides is a parent, regardless of what the law says.
Without Judicial Merit. Though the Missouri Plan is supposed to keep politics out of the process, it has instead transferred power from voters to state bar associations and legal groups that control the judicial commission. The result is a system that's contentious and opaque — and has tipped the state courts steadily to the left.
Gay Marriage Returns. California's Supreme Court is not the law of the land, but its 4-3 ruling, titled "In re Marriage Cases" for six consolidated appeals, explicitly told both the state's voters and its elected legislature to get lost. Back in 2000, California voters by 61% approved a proposition asserting that the state could only recognize a "marriage" between man and woman. Now comes the court.
Too "Complex"? Part III. There was a time when courts would have stopped politicians from interfering with people's property rights by banning chain stores. … However, once the notion of "a living Constitution" became fashionable, the Constitution's protection of property rights has been "interpreted" virtually out of existence by judges.
Picking Judges: President Dwight Eisenhower was no liberal activist, but his appointment of Earl Warren as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court dramatically shifted the nation leftward for decades on everything from criminal justice to separation of church and state to legislative reapportionment. Similarly, President Ronald Reagan was far more successful in reshaping the courts than in reducing the size of government. So it's important to know how each of the current candidates will go about picking judges when one of them becomes president.
King Harry Reid Thinks Americans Don't Care About Judicial Activism. Senator Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, told his fellow Senators last week that he "can't ever remember going home" and hearing voters complain to him about Bush's blocked judicial nominations or judicial activism.
Montana Judge: Man Has Right to Assisted Suicide. A Montana judge has ruled that doctor-assisted suicides are legal in the state, a decision likely to be appealed as the state argues that the Legislature, not the court, should decide whether terminally ill patients have the right to take their own life. (sic)
The Editor says...
Why can't judges be content to enforce the law, instead of legislating from the bench and manufacturing new "rights"? By the way, "their" is plural and "life" is singular.
Judicial Activism and the Threat to the Constitution. Where judges usurp democratic legislative authority by imposing on the people their moral and political preferences under the guise of vindicating constitutional guarantees, they should be severely criticized and resolutely opposed. In this publication, distinguished constitutional scholar and Princeton professor Robert P. George explains the meaning of judicial activism — how judges exceed their constitutional powers when they seek to write laws rather than interpret them, and examines the history of judicial activism in United States courts.
The Judiciary: Tyranny's Active Agent. Without exaggeration, it can be said that most of the activist, anti-traditional measures of government have been judicially imposed. Those have been predominantly aimed at outlawing Judeo-Christian morality, notably Roe v. Wade and measures to banish spiritual religion from education and politics, while encouraging an accelerating descent into the cesspool of sensual gratification. Such measures were judicially imposed precisely because there never has been sufficient public support for them to gain passage in Congress. Federal judges have simply legislated what, in their personal opinions, the law ought to be.
Schumachers ordered to pay $97,000 in protesters' legal fees. A federal judge has ordered one of Portland's last furriers to pay nearly $97,000 in legal fees to the animal-rights protesters he has accused of destroying his family business.
Washington Court to Decide if State's Voters Understood 2001 Tax-Cut Vote. "If Judge Roberts' decision is allowed to stand," said Jonathan Bechtle, director of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's Citizenship and Governance Center, "it will put a dangerous tool into the hands of those who wish to undermine the peoples' right of initiative, since any court or the legislature will be able to nullify an initiative simply by making a technical change to whatever law it amends."
Harry Reid: Promise Breaker. Last month, Reid finally agreed to do something about the Senate's abysmal progress in moving President Bush's US circuit court judge nominations to an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor. Given the current Democrat-dominated Senate's snail's pace on circuit court confirmations (only eight circuit court nominees have been confirmed so far in this Congress), Reid promised McConnell that at least three nominations would be brought to a vote before the Memorial Day recess began. Reid broke that promise.
Political rhetoric over federal judges heats up. The calm couldn't last. Almost three years after the Senate confirmed two Supreme Court justices and rescued the judicial filibuster as part of an innovative bipartisan agreement, tensions are again rising over judicial nominations.
Faith of some is more equal than faith of others. [The] politicization [of the judicial nomination process] has reached such extremes that Republicans threatened to "shut down the Senate" in protest against it on Thursday. Their protest is justified. The experience of the essay's author is a perfect case study of how liberal senators have mischaracterized the views and records of so many of the nominees they opposed.
Frivolous politics: Part II. Differences in judicial nominees may seem like a small difference between the two parties. But federal judges serve for life — and some are a major disservice for life. Crazy decisions are still being made by federal judges appointed by Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and even Lyndon Johnson. Allowing these kinds of judges to create new "rights" for captured terrorists out of thin air would be an invitation to disaster. Yet more such judges will be appointed by Democrats.
Bush Renominates Judicial Picks. President Bush renominated six previously blocked candidates for federal appeals court yesterday [11/15/2006], triggering the first real battle with ascendant Democrats since the midterm elections and signaling what could be the start of a fierce two-year struggle over the shape of the federal judiciary.
Democrats warned not to block judges. The Senate's next Republican leader issued a veiled threat to block action on legislation if Democrats refuse to allow confirmation votes on President Bush's troubled judicial nominations.
The 9th strikes out on death penalty. There should be two U.S. Supreme Courts, one to reverse the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the other to hear all other cases. Last term, more of the Supreme Court's caseload — 18 of 82 cases (22 percent) — came from the liberal Ninth Circuit, based in San Francisco, than from any other circuit, and the Ninth was reversed in 15 of the 18.
A judge drags his feet to avoid enforcing the death penalty.
Federal judge in Ohio stripped of five death penalty cases. A chief federal judge took away five death penalty cases from a colleague criticized by some prosecutors for taking as many as eight years to issue appeals rulings. … U.S. District Judge Walter Rice … is based in Dayton and was appointed by President Carter in 1980.
Judicial temperament? A poster of Che Guevara hangs on the wall of a judge who found Ohio's death penalty law constitutionally lacking. But his idol Che was not very respectful of the niceties of justice, and loved to watch firing squads at work.
Senate Abandons Judicial Nominees. There is a lot of blame to go around with respect to the Senate's obstruction of President Bush's judicial nominees. Democrats, who are philosophically opposed to the candidates, are playing games with the judicial confirmation process in order to appease the liberal wing of their party. They even took the extraordinary step of launching judicial filibusters to prevent up-or-down votes — a tactic that is not only unprecedented, but also flagrantly unconstitutional.
Men in Black is a must-read. Mark R. Levin showcases the justices' policymaking adventures with a litany of decisions wholly divorced from the Constitution. For example, the Court has ruled that cyberspace child pornography is protected free speech, but certain broadcast advertisements run prior to an election are not. Nazis marching in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood is sanctioned by the First Amendment, but not demonstrations in front of abortion clinics. The Court has decided that non-citizens have a right to compete for civil servant jobs, be members of the bar, and receive state benefits regardless of residency requirements. And illegal immigrants have a constitutional right to public education.
The legal system is now our enemy. Though there are many fine people in the legal profession, and though law is necessary to protect society from descending into chaos, I now fear the legal profession more than I do Islamic terror.
Prosecutor Appeals After Judge Drops Rape Charges Against Liberian Over Lack of Interpreter. The prosecutor in the case of a Liberian native charged with repeatedly raping and molesting a 7-year-old girl said Monday that he is filing an appeal of a controversial judge's ruling that dismissed all charges because an interpreter who spoke the suspect's rare West African dialect could not be found.
It Depends On The Meaning Of "Rape". Tory Bowen, a 24-year-old Lincoln, Nebraska, woman, has alleged that Pamir Safi, a 33-year-old Army reservist, raped her. … In a bizarre case of prior restraint, Lancaster County District Judge Jeffre Cheuvront has banned certain words and phrases from the trial on the grounds that they could be prejudicial to the defendant. Those terms include "rape," "assailant," "victim," "sexual assault," and "sexual assault kit." The judge did not indicate what words are supposed to be left for the prosecutor to put on his case.
Update:
Judge in sex assault case sued by alleged victim. In the latest legal twist in the sexual assault prosecution of a Lincoln man, the woman at the center of the case sued the trial judge this week because he barred "rape" and other words from the courtroom.
Too short for prison? Every time you think that irresponsible judges couldn't possibly do anything else to show more concern for perpetrators than their victims, a jurist possessing a "uniquely enhanced" sense of justice raises the bar. The state of Nebraska was home to the most recent example of this just last week, with the sentencing of a man convicted of child molestation.
Court: Gay marriage in Canada should be recognized in New York. An appeals court has ruled that a gay couple's marriage in Canada should be recognized in New York. The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court today reversed a judge's ruling in 2006 that Monroe Community College did not have to extend health benefits to an employee's lesbian partner.
Court: Just being in U.S. isn't illegal. While unauthorized entry into the United States is illegal, being in the country after having entered illegally is not necessarily a crime, according to a new ruling by the Kansas Court of Appeals. In a Barton County case, a three-judge panel issued an opinion Friday [8/17/2007] that a judge could not deny probation and order jail time for convicted drug dealer Nicholas L. Martinez based solely on the grounds that Martinez is an unauthorized immigrant.
Vehicle doesn't have to be occupied to be carjacked, court rules. A defendant who accosted a woman soon after she got out of her car, took her keys and then drove off is guilty of carjacking, not just robbery, the state Supreme Court ruled. Defendant Henry A. Edmondson Jr. had argued that his conviction in Nashville for carjacking was improper because the victim wasn't in the car when it was stolen.
Judge rules against film sanitizers. Sanitizing movies on DVD or VHS tape violates federal copyright laws, and several companies that scrub films must turn over their inventory to Hollywood studios, an appeals judge ruled. Editing movies to delete objectionable language, sex and violence is an "illegitimate business" that hurts Hollywood studios and directors who own the movie rights, said U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch in a decision released Thursday [7/6/2006] in Denver.
New York Panel OKs Pistol-Packing Judges. It's one way to assure order in the court. The New York state Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics has ruled that it is permissible for judges to pack a pistol beneath their robes while on the bench.
Losing an issue: Both the Senate and White House have risen from an all-year slumber that ignored their issue of judicial confirmations until now. Last Thursday night [7/20/2006], the Senate unexpectedly confirmed four judges, on a voice vote after no debate.
A Judge Who Deserves to be Benched. Anything that puts Democrats even an inch closer to appointing federal judges should be more than enough reason to get every right-winger off the couch and down to his polling place.
Dear Senator Kennedy: Resigning to Reform. Dear Senator Kennedy: Those of us who have been calling repeatedly for fundamental reform of what has become a corrupted judicial confirmation process can only read your July 30th op-ed in the Washington Post with astonishment. Most amazingly, after decades of abuse of the process you are now calling for reform yourself.
The face of judicial disgrace: By most accounts, Judge Edward Cashman was once a reasonable, fair-minded, common-sense Vermont jurist. Today, he epitomizes the black-robed high priests who are so familiarly out of touch with the will of their constituents and the laws of the land they are sworn to uphold. You've heard of Cashman. He's the judge who sentenced a child rapist to 60 days in prison because "anger doesn't solve anything. It just corrodes your soul."
The Ninth Circuit: Out of Control Judicially and Otherwise? The Ninth Circuit is a bit of a monster — for reasons of geography, population, number of Judges and, most conservatives and the Supreme Court of the United States would say, some of its peculiar jurisprudence.
9th Circuit Judge Sets Standard for Liberal Activism. The "right to privacy," which liberals maintain is implied in the U.S. Constitution and which was used by the U.S. Supreme Court to legalize abortion in 1973, apparently mattered little to Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this month when he ruled on a case involving parental rights.
Liberal judge: Federal District Judge James Robertson, who resigned from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) court in protest over secret wiretaps ordered by President Bush, is regarded in Washington legal circles as one of President Bill Clinton's most liberal and partisan judicial appointments.
High courts rebuke activist judges. The Court of Appeals, the highest court in the Empire State, answered all the involved parties with a 4-2 spanking of the activists and made perfectly clear that only the people of New York have the ability to redefine the institution of marriage, clarifying the division that exists between the judiciary and the legislature.
Scalia's good sense. Long known as the most quotable of the nine justices on the Supreme Court, Antonin Scalia turns out to be just as refreshing off the bench. … "Anyone who thinks the country's most prominent lawyers reflect the views of the people needs a reality check," said Scalia. Today's judges, he said, are no more qualified than "Joe Sixpack" to decide the kind of moral questions that have roiled political debate for decades.
Muslim inmate wins court fight. A federal judge has ordered prison officials to allow a Muslim inmate to be fed an appropriate diet and to wear a headpiece consistent with Islamic teachings.
Supermax inmate wins lawsuit over correspondence limits. An inmate at the nation's most secure prison has won a lawsuit challenging the Bureau of Prisons' restrictions on the types of reading materials inmates are allowed to receive by mail.
[Why is mail allowed in and out of the Supermax prison anyway?]
The Left's Tactics on Judicial Warfare: The Left has a history of distortion — of both words and a nominee's record — so you can't assume that they mean what you mean or what they say is the truth.
Better off dead. "What distinguishes the rule of law from the dictatorship of a shifting Supreme Court majority," Justice Scalia wrote this week, "is the absolutely indispensable requirement that judicial opinions be grounded in consistently applied principle. That is what prevents judges from ruling now this way, now that – thumbs up or thumbs down – as their personal preferences dictate."
Foreign law is not law. The Constitution of the United States expressly forbad retroactive laws — "ex post facto" laws, it called them — but judicial decisions creating new rights, duties, and nuances out of thin air are for all practical purposes ex post facto law. "Evolving standards" are also ex post facto law, for who can know in advance how someone else's standards are going to evolve, much less which evolving standards will get a majority of the votes in the Supreme Court?
Update: The information in this subsection has been added since the compromise agreement of May 23, 2005.
An Admission of Guilt. Conservatives have good reason to be unhappy with the agreement announced [May 23] concerning the Senate's judicial-confirmation process. The agreement does not guarantee up-or-down votes on all of President Bush's judicial nominees, nor does it restore the Senate's unswerving 214-year tradition of majority vote for all judicial nominees. In addition, the agreement attempts to rewrite Article II of the Constitution, by giving the Senate an advise-and-consent role in the nomination, as well as the appointment, of judges. … The agreement acknowledges that Owen, Brown, and Pryor should never have been filibustered in the first place.
Seven "extraordinary" idiots. The only way for Americans to get some vague semblance of what they voted for is to elect mammoth Republican majorities — and no "mavericks." (Fortunately, for the sake of civilization and the republic, that process seems to be well under way.)
"Compromise" Always Positions to the Left. While compromise can be a good thing in theory, when applied as defined by the liberal left it is always a disaster for the conservatives in the United States.
The filibuster and Roe v. Wade: It is crystal clear that Americans are unhappy and concerned with the moral state of affairs of our country. The central aspect of that concern, as it concerns our judiciary, is legal abortion, as defined by Roe v. Wade. This is what this fight over judge appointments is about.
Minority rule: What has brought the country to the brink is not this president or conservative senators. It is rogue judges who have decided in their own minds – shaped by their own social and political biases – to reshape the country in their image.
The flinch heard 'round the world: Republicans were within hours of passing a procedural rule that would have eliminated the Democrats' unprecedented use of the judicial filibuster. It would not only have freed from filibuster limbo seven Bush nominees to the circuit courts, but it would have assured future nominees, particularly to the Supreme Court, an up-or-down vote. Then the Republicans flinched.
A betrayal of historic proportions. Though even some conservatives disagree, no matter how you spin it, this compromise agreement among the 14 self-anointed Senators is a big loser for Republicans and for the country.
The McCain mutiny: After all the glowing words surrounding the Senate "compromise" in which the Republicans folded their hand despite holding all the high cards, it is worth taking a look at who won what and why. The biggest winner is Senator John McCain, who once again sold out both principles and party, to the applause of the mainstream media.
Tell McCain it's "Joanie". Setting out this past week to prove he adores America, responsibility and institutional probity, John McCain actually proved he is one sorely confused politician. … To head off an immediate Senate dustup, he furthered judicial tyranny. He helped squelch a non-outrage for the sake of a real one.
Still brutish Senate: The lavishly acclaimed new era of good feelings in the Senate lasted less than four days.
A dead deal: In less than a week, the Democrats were back to their old tricks, this time filibustering the nomination of John Bolton to be U.N. ambassador.
The case for judicial term limits. The deal that pulled the Senate back from the brink of a shootout over judicial nominations this week didn't really settle anything. Democrats retain the right to filibuster future nominees "under extraordinary circumstances" — a phrase it is left to them to define. … Odds are the deal will collapse as soon as the next vacancy opens up on the Supreme Court.
A compromised party: The Republicans will be able to get a vote on three nominees — Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown, and William Pryor — people who represent the view that judges should enforce the laws passed by elected officials. Fine. But a lot more such judges need to be put on the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, to change the current pervasive judicial activism. Is that likely now?
Arizona taxpayers paying dearly for judicial activism. One of the most outrageous examples of out-of-control judges is the case called Flores v. Arizona, now pending in federal court in Tucson. Originally filed in 1992, plaintiff lawyers claim to represent an estimated 160,000 children of illegal immigrants attending Arizona public schools. The case seeks to force Arizona taxpayers to pay for bringing these children, euphemistically called English Language Learners, up to grade level.
Clinton-Appointed Judge Evokes Calls for Impeachment. While many conservatives want Congress to hold activist judges accountable, the House Judiciary Committee hasn't investigated a referral of a potential impeachment case involving a Clinton-appointed federal judge in Connecticut who engaged in what appeared to be a personal crusade to stop the execution of a serial killer.
Congress Has Constitutional Power to Reign in Activist Judges. Article III of the Constitution is the answer to judicial activism, [because it] can help Congress take away federal judges' power to legislate from the bench.
Do words break bones? It's a pretty sad day in America when one cannot criticize the judiciary and even individual judges without being accused of advocating violence against judges. This strained connection is but another example of liberals trying to chill conservative speech.
Judicial scandal: Documentary evidence is overwhelming. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund secretly requested that confirmation of a federal appeals judge nominated by President Bush be delayed until the court ruled in favor of affirmative action. The Senate, then under Democratic control, granted the delay.
The dishonest attack on Priscilla Owen: Justice Owen's resume is impeccable: top of her law-school class (completing undergraduate and law school in just over five years); highest score statewide on the bar exam; ten years on the Texas Supreme Court; reelected in 2000 with 84 percent of the vote and the endorsement of every major Texas newspaper; and the highest rating possible — a unanimous "well qualified" — from the American Bar Association (no conservative bastion), which Democrats once hailed as "the gold standard."
Nuclear? No, Restoration. Four years ago this week, President Bush nominated Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen to the federal bench. Four years later, she and six other circuit court nominees remain unconfirmed and unvoted upon because of Democratic filibusters.
Justice Owen's Opponents vs the Facts.
Disparaging dissent. Senate Democrats gripe that Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen and California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown have authored dissents. According to their detractors, the dissenting views prove them outside the mainstream and unfit for appointment as federal appellate judges. To accept the argument as a general standard for judicial selection would transform constitutional law into a petrified forest. As with the physical sciences, progress in the law begins with challenges to orthodoxy.
The Senate's Sham Debate. Senators droned on last week, supposedly debating two female nominees for the U.S. appellate bench, but it was a sham. The real issue was the future makeup of the Supreme Court, which explains the audacious Democratic strategy of blocking President Bush's choices for lower courts.
The Senate's "Dirty Harry": Even to threaten to obstruct the operation of the Senate during a war is something that boggles the mind, whether or not the threat is actually carried out. It also boggles the mind to see liberals defending filibusters, whose best known use in the past has been to block civil rights legislation. What they are really defending is the right of those who lost an election to prevent those who won from governing.
Big-time bigotry: The essence of bigotry is denying other people the same rights you have. For generations, it was racial bigotry which provoked filibusters to prevent the Senate from voting on bills to extend civil rights to blacks. But bigotry is bigotry, whether it is racial bigotry, religious bigotry or political bigotry.
Why the right judge matters: A single federal judge can change the will of a large majority of the people and their elected representatives. This is what dictators do.
Above criticism? Over the past several decades, we have gotten used to judges being above the law, so it was perhaps inevitable that we would now be asked to get used to the idea that judges are above criticism.
Invoking the "nuclear option" — there is no other option. I think Republican Party honchos may be underestimating the grassroots passion over the judiciary. The outrage against activist courts — and by no means are all of them activist — is real, growing and far from a fringe phenomenon.
The constitutional option: What's really at stake. The Senate does not have coequal authority with the president on judicial appointments as the advice-and-consent function was not intended to confer veto power on the Senate.
Disinformation on judges: This is not about two people being nominated to be federal judges. It is about the whole role of judges in a self-governing republic. The voters' votes mean less and less as time goes by, when judges take more and more decisions out of the hands of elected officials and substitute their own policy preferences, all under the guise of "interpreting" laws.
Liberals rally around judicial supremacy. The judicial supremacists are just plain wrong when they assert that the rule of law requires the U.S. Supreme Court to be accepted as the final arbiter of constitutional questions. They are actually demanding that the rule of judges replace the rule of law.
American Bar Association takes another swipe at the Bush presidency. The ABA also has a hard time understanding political balance. It apparently thinks its 10-person task force was fair because it included three "conservatives." … The ABA report on Presidential signing statements is a transparent political exercise, and the lawyers should at least have the nerve to defend it as such, rather than pretend they are some neutral body.
Judicial Houdinis: When judges use "legerdemain," "slight-of-hand" and "obfuscation" to describe a ruling by their fellow judges, it's a clue that the "dissenting opinion" isn't boring.
It's More than Judges. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid doesn't seem to get the fact that George W. Bush won the presidential election last November. He also doesn't get that the Republicans picked up five seats in the Upper Chamber. That's called a mandate. Despite this, Reid believes he can negotiate, or even dictate, which judicial appointments can be voted on in the Senate.
Confirm Janice Brown now. When California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown faced a retention vote in 1998, 76 percent of Californians voted to keep her on their state's highest court. In San Francisco, perhaps America's most liberal city, she won 79.4 percent.
The Democrats' full-o-bluster. The Democrats are indeed full of bluster, but the current debate over their obstruction of President George W. Bush's judicial nominees is no trivial matter. This debate is not about a "looming Constitutional crisis" — we are in the midst of perhaps the most serious Constitutional crisis since the War Between the States.
Democrats Step Up Fight Against Nominees. When Senator Bill Nelson of Florida stepped before the microphones Thursday [4/7/2005] to announce that he would use "every parliamentary procedure that is available to me" to block the nomination of Stephen L. Johnson to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, he became the latest Democrat this week to stand in the way of President Bush's nominees.
Democrats Block Several Key Nominees. In the Senate, already at the edge of war over changing the rules for filibusters, Democrats are using a courtesy known as "holds" to stymie President Bush's appointees to head the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Benching the judges: Term limits aren't just for the U.S. President and legislatures in 15 states. They deserve to be extended, even to the Supreme Court. Why? … Partisan rancor in the U.S. Senate is dangerously high; add the issue of selecting federal judgeships, especially to the High Court and for a life term, and you reach meltdown.
Forgetting Facts While Making Law. In our system of limited government, with its separation of powers, we depend upon our unelected lifetime-tenured judges to restrain themselves from implementing their own moral, social and political values when they are unsupported by a plain understanding of the Constitution and at odds with the choices we make through the democratic process.
Where is that in the Constitution? Activist judges seldom rely on the words of the Constitution but on opinions of other judges that can be stretched and re-interpreted to fit the causes activists choose to promote or protect. Over time, the original intent of the Constitution gets lost in the sediment from layers of judicial interpretations.
High noon for judges. It is painfully ironic that we should be promoting the spread of democracy abroad when democracy is shrinking at home. Over the years, the outcomes of our elections have meant less and less, as judges have taken more and more decisions out of the hands of elected officials.
High noon for judges: Part III. People who complain about the frivolous lawsuits that have outraged some and ruined others financially need to connect the dots to the present Senate controversy over the confirmation of federal judges.
Justice Kennedy should stand for re-election. Now that he has made himself an uber-legislator, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy should do as lesser legislators do. He should stand for re-election. What I mean is, he should resign — and see if the president nominates him again, or the Senate confirms him. The Constitution, of course, sets no term limit for justices. They can resign, however, at any time.
Byrd's nuclear option. The unprecedented Democratic plan to filibuster judicial nominations that do not meet liberal specifications has exceeded all expectations. None of 10 filibustered Bush appellate court nominees has been confirmed, and another six are all designated filibuster victims. This is intended to have a chilling effect on Bush in filling Supreme Court vacancies.
Nuclear option is not nuclear. The Constitution empowers the president to appoint judges with the advice and consent of the Senate. The advice and consent power was never intended to confer co-equal power on the Senate over judicial (and other) nominations. Rather, it was designed to provide a legislative check to reduce the risk that the president would appoint unqualified judges or those with poor character.
The Importance of Righteous Judges -- A Biblical Perspective. In the Senate of the United States of America there is a battle raging. The outcome of this conflict will determine the direction of the nation for generations to come. It will affect every area of our lives, from morality to legal questions. The struggle is over who will serve as judges in the federal courts of our land. It seems as if a person's political views are more important than their character; their social views more essential than how they view the Constitution of the United States. It appears that we are in a time of crisis in the judicial branch of our republic.
Ending Judicial Filibusters: As the Senate prepares for commencement of the 109th Congress, it faces a historic opportunity. To optimize this opportunity, the Senate needs to address the abusive use of filibusters against judicial nominees.
Bill Frist: Filibuster of Judicial Nominees is "Dangerous" and "Radical". The Senate must be allowed to confirm judges who fairly, justly and independently interpret the law. The current Minority has filibustered ten — and threatened to filibuster another six — nominees to federal appeals courts. This is unprecedented in over 200 years of Senate history. Never before has a Minority blocked a judicial nominee that has majority support for an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor. Never.
Moderate Republicans May Sink Bush Nominee. A group of 'moderate' Republican senators may sink one of President Bush's conservative judicial nominees. If they do, it will mark the first time a Bush judicial nominee has been defeated by an actual vote (rather than a filibuster) in the Senate. Usually conservative Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R.-Tex.), who often votes with pro-lifers, in this case is the prime mover in a group of pro-choice Republicans who have been holding up Holmes, said Manuel Miranda — who until February 6 [2004?] worked for Frist on judicial nominations. Within the Republican conference, said Miranda, "Hutchison has been the principal problem."
A lynch mob gathers. The nomination of Justice Janice Rogers Brown of the California Supreme Court to become a federal Court of Appeals judge has brought out vicious special interest groups with their long knives — and a long record of smears and character-assassination, going back to the campaign of wholesale misrepresentations that defeated the nomination of Judge Robert Bork in 1987.
A lynch mob gathers: Part II. The lynch mob atmosphere that has prevailed during confirmation hearings for judges who believe in upholding the Constitution is already in evidence among the special interest groups who are more concerned with their own political agendas than with anything as abstract as the rule of law.
A lynch mob gathers: Part III. California voters are hardly known for being on the far right. Yet they gave Janice Rogers Brown the highest vote of approval among the four justices on the same ballot.
More Senate Judiciary Committee Chicanery: Every president is entitled and expected to appoint to the bench those who share his worldview. The nominee's party affiliation is not a legitimate reason for the other party to oppose confirmation unless, perhaps, it will lead him to judicial activism on the bench. But in such cases it's not his party affiliation but his activism that makes him objectionable.
People for the American Way: The Campaign to Control America's Vote: Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen is the latest victim of People for the American Way's campaign against President Bush's judicial nominees. On September 5, [2002,] the Senate Judiciary Committee in a 10-9 party-line vote rejected her nomination to the Fifth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals.
Minority Rules: Filibustering the Constitution. The Constitution requires only a simple majority of 51 senators to confirm a judicial nomination. Any Senate rule or procedure — filibuster included — that allows the minority of the body to prevent the majority from consenting to a judicial nomination is in conflict with the Constitution.
Gay Marriage and the Federal Judicial Confirmation Process: When judges cross the line from adjudicating into lawmaking, it makes sense that Americans will seek to exercise something like electoral control over who can be a judge. That is, when these two distinct governmental powers are not kept within their constitutionally-ordained bounds, it is inevitable that the process for creating new federal judges will become regrettably politicized, thereby threatening the independence of the federal judiciary.
Democrats continue killing Bush's judicial nominations: In a move that President Bush called "shameful," the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected the nomination of Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen to the U.S. Court of Appeals for 5th Circuit.
The Senate Is Supposed to Advise and Consent, Not Obstruct and Delay: Over a year after President Bush nominated his first group of circuit court judges, only two have been confirmed. Most have not even received a hearing, yet the number of vacancies on the federal bench has grown to crisis proportion.
Eight More Clarence Thomases: It seems safe to predict that President Bush's first Supreme Court nominee is going to set off World War III. A lot is at stake for liberals with the court. If they lose a liberal vote, they will be forced to fight political battles through a messy little system known as "democracy."
Journey into Weirdsville: Some of the stuff flying around about the nomination of Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen to the U.S. Court of Appeals is really beyond the pale. When the Senate Judiciary Committee votes on the nomination, probably next week, we'll see if there's any sanity left in the confirmation process.
Toward Priscilla Owen, Not Even The Pretense Of Fairness: In the days leading up to that hearing, the usual left-wing groups put out reams of paper purporting to show that confirming Justice Owen was the worst thing that could happen to the Fifth Circuit. This wasn't surprising; these groups exist to bork Republican nominees.
Liberals Paint the "Wrong Picture" of Priscilla Owen: Abortion advocates falsely claim U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit nominee is a conservative judicial activist.
Democrats Hold Judicial Nominations for 406 Days and Counting: Senate Democrats have held up hearings for the president's 46 judicial nominees for 406 days and counting. Former Attorney General Edwin Meese called the problem a "judicial emergency" and "one of the most important causes facing the nation."
Senate Democrats Prolonging Judicial Vacancy Crisis: It is sardonically amusing to note that when Bill Clinton was appointing judges the Dems liked, they claimed there was a crisis shortage of Federal judges, and rushed to confirm. Now a Republican will be naming judges, though there are more vacancies than before, Dems see no crisis and plan to block nominees.
Pickering Battle Places Congress on Verge of "Institutional Crisis": Republicans and even some Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday [3/7/2002] acknowledged that extremely bitter battles surrounding the confirmation of President Bush's judicial nominees are endangering the entire nomination process.
Democrat dillydallying: Senate Democrats running the obstruction campaign against President Bush's judicial nominees must be squirming in their seats as 2002 opens. There's no doubt such an obstruction campaign exists.
Feminists Attack the Judicial Nomination Process: All this year, liberals have been signaling to anyone who will listen that no matter how qualified President Bush's judicial nominees are, if they don't appear willing to rule the way the leftists want, those nominations are doomed to fail.
Senator Leahy does not meet his own standards: Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy continues to insist that with him at the helm, judicial nominations are being confirmed at fair pace and that the Democrats' record on judicial nominations does credit to the Senate. Unfortunately, neither claim is true.
Addressing the 'Judicial Vacancy Crisis': Senator Patrick Leahy, when the Democrats were in the minority in the Senate, set an agenda for confirmation of judicial appointments. Now that he heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, he is failing to live up to the standards he set.
Hijacking the Constitution: The Democrat Senate is going to any lengths to halt President Bush's judicial nominees. Take for example the nominee for the Ninth Circuit. He is a highly skilled lawyer and professor, a resident of Hawaii, which is in the Ninth Circuit. Hawaii's Senators passed legislation requiring that every state in a circuit have a judge on the bench, and it has been 17 years since a Hawaiian was. But they won't back Bush's nominee.
The O.J. Simpson Case and the War on Terrorism: Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, many conservative lawyers and pundits have repeatedly raised the specter of the Simpson verdict to argue that America's civilian criminal justice system is broken — and that people accused of terrorist offenses ought to be tried before military tribunals.
Take Technicality Out of Miranda. Because the Miranda rights are not constitutional in character, Congress is free to develop alternative approaches to the issue. Indeed, it is a little known fact that Chief Justice Earl Warren's 1966 opinion in Miranda specifically "encouraged" Congress and the states to develop alternative approaches to the Miranda regime.
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