It has nothing to do with Obamacare. These right wing operatives will be on the court when the decision has to be made. They have a spot on the court until they decide to quit working for the wealthy conservatives. They are not going anywhere.
I used “separation of powers” improperly here. My bad on that.
I believe as a member of the Bar you should know:
I think Scalia’s actions creates, in “reasonable minds”, doubt about whether he is impartial.
If you were the counsel defending the health care law in front of the SCOTUS would be you relaxed that one of the justices had consulted with your opponent’s side? Or another of those justices had a wife who was pulling in big bucks opposing health care reform?
Somehow I doubt it. No one would.
That is the issue.
In light of Polycarp’s excellent history summation, how can you maintain the position that reasonable minds would believe that Scalia’s ability to carry out judicial responsibilities with integrity, impartiality, independence and competence is impaired? Justices meeting with congress and presidents has long been the way our government works. Why, suddenly, in 2001, is it an event which calls into question the integrity, impartiality, independence and competence of a particular justice?
I note a lot of “justice X talked to congress” in there but we are woefully short on details.
Of course justices will have occasion to talk to members of congress or presidents.
Were they consulting in secret (inasmuch as what was said in the meetings are private and unknown except to a few) and exclusively with one side of an issue?
Compare apples-to-apples here.
Personally if Ginsburg were in secret meetings or accepting what amounts to gifts for one side (as Thomas did with the Koch brothers) I’d be with conservatives in saying that was inappropriate as well.
If Justice Scalia refused to meet with the Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for a closed-door, roundtable discussion of constitutional principles, then questions would be raised in my mind.
I don’t think that a judge talking to politicians about the Constitution is anywhere NEAR an event of impropriety or having the appearance of such. Talk about thought police.
As Ravenman correctly points out, I’d have to hear that another group extended an invitation to Scalia which he declined before I agreed that he was favoring one group over another.
But yes – in each of those earlier examples, they were meeting “in secret” – which you define as a meeting that is private and the contents of which are unknown except to the participants. In fact, in the Fortas case, Abe Fortas denied asking LBJ for a pardon, and there was no extrinsic evidence to contradict him. It wasn’t until a subsequent taped phone call between Fortas and Wolfson came to light, in which Fortas alludes to having discussed the issue with Johnson, that the truth came out.
How is this meeting Justice Breyer had with members of Congress different?
We know about it from one of the members’ reporting on it. So are you saying that if one of the attendees did a similar blog post on Scalia’s meeting, you’d be fine?
Here’s a secret meeting with Leahy and Justice Stevens. My God, even when asked directly what was said, Leahy refuses to answer:
The horror!
I don’t see an immediate problem with Scalia’s meeting, but I would think it generally a good idea if what was discussed in meetings of this ilk was made public.
And this is interesting – you imply that this meeting was closed.
It was – to the public. But it was open to all members of Congress, not just Tea Party members.
Did you know this and not share it?
Heck, barring a national security interest or some comparable issue, I’d suggest making the details all congressional meetings public.
I don’t agree that everything the government does in the area of public policy needs to be completely transparent. I think there are certain areas in which a high degree of transparency is essential – for example, the process of awarding billion-dollar contracts for defense projects or road construction – should be subject to scrutiny after a government decision has been made.
But at a certain level, there needs to be some relief from the public eye in which policymakers can explore ideas, have frank exchanges, and even have arguments without fear of public embarrassment. I just don’t know how government can function effectively if every single meeting is in the public eye – there would be massive disincentives for thinking outside the box or having political opponents deal with each other on a human level, rather than pure, non-stop political posturing.
Let’s just say for the purposes of discussion that Justice Scalia had a congressman ask him a question about penumbras. Now, maybe this congressman had a background in science or business, not the law, and he wanted to know just what the fuck a penumbra was. Can you imagine the potential for embarrassment if it became publicly known that the congressman, who holds such an important job in approving laws, doesn’t even know what a penumbra is? What an idiot! What a maroon! What an embarrassment to his district!
So do we want to discourage a politician from asking an important question of substance because he’s afraid that the press and his political opponents will have a field day because he actually attempted to learn something?
I’d agree - a default of transparency unless there is a reason for it to be otherwise.
Ravenman raises a good point though - perhaps a delay is in order. Confidential congressional meeting details will be publicized within one year, barring a compelling interest otherwise.
Good luck getting that passed, though.
I gather most of us are assuming this meeting was mainly about Tea Party types talking strategy, asking Scalia about avenues of attack (ways to challenge Dem legislation on constitutional grounds) and defense (ways to bulletproof their own legislation against similar attacks), and they invited Scalia because other justices were more likely to tell 'em to fuck off.
Well there is a matter of degree I think. I don’t necessarily mean minutes of the meeting should be made public. But I also think something better than “Supreme Court Justice Anthony “Fat Tony” Scalia meets with teabagger congresscritters to discuss the constitution” is providing a lot of information.
There’s a middle ground somewhere, I would hope.
Of course not.
If that is so then fine. I do not see a big deal here either.
We can tackle Thomas getting nice trips to Palm Springs on the Koch brothers dime instead. 
I’ll also note you never addressed the ethical requirements of the American Bar Association’s admonition to “avoid the appearance of impropriety”.
In my view that precept holds most true for a SCOTUS justice who, more than anyone, should avoid even the appearance of impropriety.
Since the same sorts of things are done, and historically have been done, by Supreme Court justices many times before, I believe that addresses the issue of the appearance of impropriety.
It has everything to do with Obamacare.
It is entirely possible that the question as to whether Obamacare is Constitutional or not, will come before the Court. Therefore we are getting a flurry of scandal-mongering from the liberal blogosphere, aimed solely at the more conservative members of the Court, in hopes of dredging up something that can be used to force them to resign or be discredited.
That’s all there is to it.
Regards,
Shodan
I must have missed this piece of I information. Was it in the Raw Story article I linked to?
For something that happens all the time people so far have been thin on specific details.
Again, it needs to be an apples-apples comparison. Not that some justice talked to a congresscritter at some point in the past (of course that happens). Anecdotal evidence here and there is a start but if it happens all the time then it should be a simple matter to point it out this avalanche of occurrences. Something where, say, Ginsburg has gone to the liberal equivalent of a closed meeting sponsored by the Koch brothers, all expenses paid in nice locales (which both Scalia and Thomas have).