Sunday, October 7, 2007

The Right Judicial Litmus Test...Follow the Constitution, or not?


This question is made all the more urgent by the fact that on Jan. 20, 2009, six of the nine current justices will be over the age of 70--an age at which many people either retire or begin to wind down their affairs. There is thus a very real possibility that the next president could appoint as many as four justices in his first term alone. We may be getting ready for the biggest turnover in the membership of the Supreme Court since Richard Nixon's election in 1968 brought the Warren Court to an end.

I submit that the proper basis on which we should evaluate the court's performance in this term and in the future is not whether it reaches "conservative" or "liberal" results in constitutional cases, but whether it reaches results that are faithful to the Constitution as written and understood at the time of its adoption. Likewise, the test for presidential candidates on the judiciary should be whether they can be trusted to nominate justices who will follow our written Constitution. Read on @ Wall Street Journal

2 comments:

Unknown said...

hmmmm, i did not realize this was going to occur.
it will be interesting not only to see who gets elected, but also who gets appointed, and the new decision making process.

Unknown said...

Wow, follow the constitution as it was intedend at the time of adoption... there is a novel idea! since when has basing the appointal of a judge on his/her political views been okay? thats corruption at its finest right there... cheating that is approved by the refs. Seems to bring a picture of a football team...maybe wearing black and yellow...fans with flags...hmm...must be some connection;)Nice job over the hawks... though not a 5-0 nice.