Judicial Nominations Fight Continues
Published Sat, Nov 18 2006 2:46 PM
Technorati Tags: News and Politics, Courts
The Associated Press can't help putting the label "conservative" on the notion of Judges interpreting the law instead of making law. An AP Article in the Olympian is headlined "Cheney: GOP losses won't keep Bush from nominating conservative judges". What Vice President Cheney actually said was that the losses wouldn't keep President Bush from nominating judges who believe in interpreting rather than making law. Somehow the headline seems to be trying to put a negative spin on the idea. Here's a few highlights from the full article.
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney assured a conservative lawyers' group Friday that the Republican loss of Congress would not dissuade President Bush from nominating more judges who believe in interpreting rather than making law.
"Throughout our time in office, the president has selected judges who understand their role in the constitutional system," Cheney told the Federalist Society.
"And I assure you, nothing that's happened in the last two weeks will change his commitment to nominating first-rate talent like John Roberts and Sam Alito," Cheney said, referring to the two members of the Supreme Court named by Bush.
Cheney quoted Chief Justice Roberts as saying that judges are to be "servants of the law, not the other way around. "
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Judges "have a duty to pursue no agenda or platform - and to leave politics to those who run for office and answer to the people," Cheney said.
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Cheney also slammed a Michigan federal judge's decision in August that struck down Bush's warrantless surveillance program, saying it violated the rights to free speech and privacy, as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.
He said that he was confident the decision would be overturned on appeal because the program "rests on firm legal ground."
As to the court's claim that it violated the doctrine of separation of powers, "we, of course, disagree," Cheney said. "But since we're on the subject of separation of powers, one conclusion is hard to escape: the Michigan district courts decision is an indefensible act of judicial overreaching."
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The Senate's next Republican leader issued a veiled threat Friday to block action on legislation if Democrats refuse to allow confirmation votes on President Bush's troubled judicial nominations.
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If the "Democrats want our cooperation, they'll give the president's judicial nominees an up-or-down vote," McConnell said.
Politics don't belong in the courtroom. Judges that interpret the law rather than making the law abuse their power and are the reason judicial nominations have been politicized. After all, if your policies aren't popular with the majority of the people, an alternative is to get a judge to enact them for you. The judges don't have to answer to the electorate.
Too many judges have taken to issuing policy edicts from the bench and ordering legislatures to write laws that the judges want rather than laws that the people want. The "gang of fourteen" was a poor example of spineless legislators seeking to avoid the issue rather than confront it. It's about time that Republican Senators showed some backbone in this.
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