Rick Perry will not be president. That much is certain. And Rick Perry’s ideas — the flat tax, elimination of government agencies, bellicose foreign policy, etc. — deserve to die with his candidacy.
Except for one: The proposal he announced today to impose term limits on federal judges. Since the appointment of the 43-year-old Clarence Thomas by President George H.W. Bush to what is likely to be a 35- 40-year reign on the Supreme Court, it has been clear to me that lifetime appointments come with the potential for disaster.
Perry is proposing an 18-year term, which seems too short to me, but why not limit terms on the federal bench to 25 years, which would guarantee some turnover and give presidents of both parties a chance to influence the work of the bench and could help ensure that changing mores are reflected by the men and women who sit.
It’s jut a thought, but just because Perry is, well, batty doesn’t mean we can’t at least discuss some of what he offers.
Here is a message/comment chain from my Facebook page in response to yesterday’s post on Obama and the court. I thought it was worth sharing here (w/out the names):
1. I think ost of the Warren Court decisions were just fine, but there were occasions when they did indeed overreach in the name of a greater notion of justice.
2. I think Obama is mainly still responding to the Citizen United campaign finance opinion when he warns about judicial activism. He still doesn’t have a majority on the Court, and he still does in Congress, so encouraging deference to legislative intent is still in his political self-interest. We’ll see if the rhetoric changes after mid-term … See Moreelections and the death or retirement of a conservative Justice.
I do agree with 1. that there was some overreaching judicial activism on the left. On criminal procedure for example. That being said, I’m confident Obama will nominate a liberal who he believes supports Roe v. Wade, affirmative action, and campaign finance reform.
3. Not to mention the ability of the feds to do things like the healthcare bill.
Me: I think, in the end, he will nominate a perfectly useful liberal judge in the Clinton-appointee mold. But I don’t think we should let him off the hook for using conservative rhetoric and playing to a conservative argument. It is a dangerous gambit, if it is only tactical, and much more troubling if it is philosophical.
I think we also have to be … See Morecareful about the Stevens replacement because anything other than a true liberal — someone to the left of Breyer — would push the court to the right. And let’s face it, he is not going to have a shot at replacing a conservative until his second term, if he gets one. The next justice to go will be Ginsberg, most likely, meaning he will be in a position to replace the three most liberal justices on the court on the day he was sworn in.
That makes appointing a true liberal justice imperative.
Plus, and I think this is key, the court is a co-equal branch. It is not to usurp the legislative role, but it has a responsibility to ensure that any action taken by the other two branches — or by the states — meets the guidelines set out in the Constitution and the amendments. That gives the court, I think, the responsibility to overrule the legislature when the legislature overreaches — a point that no one ever seems to talk about. If the judiciary can overreach, so can the other two branches, as we learned to the nation’s detriment during the Bush years.
As for the 60s-70s courts, I’m not sure which specific criminal procedure rulings you’re talking about. You’ll have to be more specific.
I’ve been quite skeptical about Al Franken’s arrival in the U.S. Senate, concerned about the way he entered the race and about some of the positions he had taken early in his candidacy. I also was concerned that he would not be taken seriously.
His opening statement at Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court, already has gone a long way toward alleviating some of my concerns.
First, I believe the position of Congress with respect to the Courts and the Executive is in jeopardy. Even before I aspired to represent the people of Minnesota in the United States Senate, I believed that the Framers made Congress the first branch of government for a reason. It answers most directly to the people and has the legitimacy to speak for the people in crafting laws to be carried out by the executive branch.
I am wary of judicial activism and I believe in judicial restraint. Except under the most exceptional circumstances, the judicial branch is designed to show deep deference to Congress and not make policy by itself.
Yet looking at recent decisions on voting rights, campaign finance reform, and a number of other topics, it appears that appropriate deference may not have been shown in the past few years – and there are ominous signs that judicial activism is on the rise in these areas.
I agree with Senator Feingold and Senator Whitehouse that we hear a lot about judicial activism when politicians talk about what kind of judge they want in the Supreme Court. But it seems that their definition of an activist judge is one who votes differently than they would like. Because during the Rhenquist Court, Justice Clarence Thomas voted to overturn federal laws more than Justices Stevens and Breyer combined.
Second, I am concerned that Americans are facing new barriers to defending their individual rights. The Supreme Court is the last court in the land where an individual is promised a level playing field and can seek to right a wrong:
It is the last place an employee can go if he or she is discriminated against because of age, gender, or color.
It is the last place a small business owner can go to ensure free and fair competition in the market.
It is the last place an investor can go to try to recover losses from securities fraud.
It is the last place a person can go to protect the free flow of information on the internet.
It is the last place a citizen can go to protect his or her vote.
It is the last place where a woman can go to protect her reproductive health and rights.
Yet from what I see, on each of those fronts, for each of those rights, the past decade has made it a little bit harder for American citizens to defend themselves.
As far as opening statements go, Sen. Franken’s shows he plans to be serious, that his chief concern will be the people — as opposed to the money interests — and that places him in stark contrast with most of his colleagues.
This sense of responsibility to the constitution has been evident in his questioning, as well, and stands in stark contrast to the race-based rhetoric of a GOP that seems still to be fighting the culture wars of the early Bush administration.
There appears to be some differing opinions on the left as to whether Sonia Sotomayor is an appropriate pick for the U.S. Supreme Court. Jonathan Turley, the George Washington University law professor who is a frequent guest on Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow’s shows, says she shown a “lack of intellectual depth in her past opinions” and that she is not likely to have “a lasting intellectual influence on the Court.” That, he told David Gregory on MSNBC, should be a chief criteria for liberals, because of the need for a counterweight to Justice Antonin Scalia:
While much will be made of the fact that Obama has chosen a woman of Puerto Rican background to serve on a court that until the 1960s was made up entirely of white man, the president has, as well, chosen a jurist whose specific experience will make her a key player on a court that, in coming years, will be taking on more and more cases involving financial and economic issues.
Judge Sotomayor’s 11 years of service on the federal appeals bench (as an appointee of Bill Clinton) have been served just a few blocks from Wall Street in Manhattan, as were her six years as a federal judge (as an appointee of George H.W. Bush as the recommendation of former New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan).
“As the top federal appeals court in the nation’s commercial center,” the New York Times notes, “the court is known in particular for its expertise in corporate and securities law.”
Cristina Lopez of the National Hispana Leadership Institute (www.nhli.org) offers a more general rationale for choosing a Latina, though not necessarily Sotomayor, saying it would bring “new and valuable perspectives to the high court,” especially on issues that have divided the court and that “are important to Latinas, including reproductive rights, affirmative action, employment discrimination, health care access, voting rights and education.”
The appointment of a Latina justice would signal a movement toward full membership for Hispanics and women in American society.
Hank Kalet 