More people voted for Obama in 2012 than voted for all senate candidates elected in 2014. Why do you oppose democracy? Why do you think the lower amount of votes should get its way?
Because its the Presidents duty as outlined in the constitution to nominate judges. And that is for his entire term. If they don’t like the current nominee then they are free to vote him down and request another nominee. They do not get to choose the nominees though. If you feel that this is their right, then I would ask for a cite for where that right comes from.
This last part is pure opinion. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but understand that this is not persuasive to those that don’t share these opinions.
Also as I said more people voted for Obama, who gets to do the nominating, then for all the recently elected Senators, so yes, the people have spoken, but you refuse to listen because the people don’t agree with you. You only want to listen to your people, but that is not democracy.
How is Lawrence a leftist-policy decision? I thought the right of the individual to be free from government interference was a long-standing Republican virtue. The decision was, if anything, a triumph for individual freedom and “don’t tread on me” and so forth.
Although I side with Obama on this issue and think the Senate should take action, that is a terrible argument to make. There are numerous occasions in our system that, by design, the lower amount of votes gets its way. This is actually one of those times when it can happen, by design. I know people want there to be some other repercussion for the Senate not acting, but the truth of the matter is the only repercussion is political, and will or will not occur in the next election (and possibly future elections), or in future politically-motivated action/non-action by the other side of the aisle.
Yes, the procedure itself is new, but I disagree that there is any difference between voting down a nominee based upon politics or simply not holding a vote based upon politics.
I think the process simply reflects the new normal. Since the left is determined to enact law, not through democratic channels, but by finding new and previously unheard of “rights” through the court system, then the right will push back. This talk of having no justices on the Court is absurd.
There will be a new process whereby the Senate and the President negotiates on a nominee. Or, and better, the Court will once again learn from its mistakes in Dred Scott, Plessy, Lochner, Roe, Casey, Lawrence, and Obergefell and stop hijacking the representative democratic process and just do lawyer stuff. Then there will not be this sort of politicization of nominees.
Just doing “lawyer stuff” is always going to piss off one side or the other. Each side will always claim that the justices supported by the other are making up new laws rather than interpreting – but that’s what all justices do – they interpret the law, and interpretation requires judgment and opinion, and these can differ.
This isn’t a surprising development as a “new normal”, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not bad. It’s unreasonable to suggest that Presidents don’t get to have nominees voted on in their last year of office.
It’s escalating the problem of partisanship instead of trying to de-escalate, and that is a bad thing that should be criticized, even as it’s so common. It should be criticized when both sides do it, since both sides obviously do. But in this case, the Republicans are wrong, and the President is right.
I don’t think its a bad argument when made against the claim that “the people” spoke in the midterms, but ignoring that much more of “the people” voted for the president who makes the nominations.
If you want to claim that your position is supported by “the people” then you should take all of “the people” into account, not just the ones that are on your side and who voted for your guys.
I agree with Thomas’ brief dissent in that case. Such a law is “uncommonly silly.” Almost nobody wants to invade private bedrooms to search for evidence of sodomy.
However, sodomy is not one of those individual rights guaranteed by the Magna Carta, English common law, or the Constitution. I personally believe that in modern society, it should be protected between consenting adults. I would not have voted for the Texas law, and I would have voted to repeal it. I would vote to ratify any constitutional amendment that no state may criminalize private, adult, consensual, non-commercial sexual conduct. But judges should not make decisions based on what should be. They should decide based upon what the law is.
In my opinion, that is a crucial, crucial distinction that preserves representative democracy against rule from nine lawyers. The majority of those nine lawyers can flip and decide that you don’t have certain rights. Judicial restraint is important even if they claim to be doing good things. Everyone has good intentions, and the fate of basic rights should not be contingent upon the passing moods of the day.
The power in the hands of nine unelected lawyers is dangerous as it can thwart the will of 320 million voters. This is not what our framers intended, nor should it be the desire of anyone committed to a rule of law and not men.
But these judgments have to be rooted in something so as not to be merely the opinions of the lawyers on the Court. History and tradition is vitally important as noted in the (now probably overruled) Glucksberg case. There is no right to physician assisted suicide. Likewise there is no historical right to abortion on demand, sodomy, or same sex marriage. There is, however, a historical right of a fit parent to the care, custody, and control of his or her minor child, even though the Constitution is silent on the issue. Troxel.
These distinctions are important because it carves out what judges may or may not do. When opinions are substituted for the law, and not an attempt to discern what the law is, we no longer have a representative democracy.
Well, we’ll have to disagree on that last point - I’m committed to rule of law and I recognize the value, indeed the need for a judiciary that can check the excesses of the legislature and executive, prone as they are to short-term political gain.
That is definitely an interpretation of law and the Constitution, but it’s not the only one. There really are different ways to interpret and understand what the Constitution says. Saying “that’s the literal interpretation” is an interpretation – but it’s not the only one (and it’s not even necessarily the literal one – even the word “literal” must be interpreted).
Yes. But having the right does not make it axiomatic that the right should be exercised.
I’m reminded of Sean Connery’s speech in “The Untouchables:”
*You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way! *
Against Capone, it may be that this was necessary. But here, I’m not so sure. Yes, the Democrats pulled the knife with their treatment of Bork. And that action removed the deontological protection that normally innures to your opponents who are acting in good faith. But if we pull the gun, do they shrug wistfully and say, “Well, that’s one on us – we sure had it coming!”
No: they pull a fully automatic gun, and we are then left looking in the war chest at the howitzer.
Besides, their entire raison d’etre is that rules don’t matter… as long as they are doing “what is right,” they say they can trample on the rules. It’s our side that should be the champions of the normalized process, even when they spit on it. So when activist justices find “rights” to second-term abortions but not third-term abortions, our response should never be to find a “right to life” for the unborn in the Fourteenth Amendment. And similarly here, as dissatisfying as it is, I think we need to suck it up and act in accord with our beliefs.
Nitpick, there may be 320 million citizens but hardly that many voters of legal age. Your rights are not subject to the vote of the citizenry, suppose each state passed a law making the Baptist Church the only acceptable religion- should the Supreme Court overturn such a desire of the people?
This seems like kind of an odd summation when the current example of this sort of thing seems to be “your side” not going with the normalized process, or the beliefs you profess “your side” holds. Possibly I’m just not sure what the sides are.
So, you believe that in 1789, the framers believed you had a right to engage in oral sex? Again, I am not saying that you should not have that right. I have certainly exercised that “right” a few times in my life. Less since my marriage, but more after it ended.
But, seriously, the “right” has to come from somewhere. Did God or nature give you (or me) a right to engage in oral sex? Did it come from English common law or the Magna Carta?
The idea that you should have that right will not get a disagreement from me. But as a judge looking at the law, one cannot find that right anywhere. It must be positively enacted. For a judge to believe that we have that right because of an “evolving” constitution takes these decisions out of the hands of voters, and makes the amendment process superfluous.
In response to the other poster than we now have recognized an “ideal” that was previously unknown, who is we? It certainly wasn’t the voters in over thirty states that banned same sex marriage in their state constitutions. It was the “we” that five lawyers said was “we.” It is arrogance to decree in that way and an insult to representative democracy. Tomorrow when “we” is Ted Cruz on the Supreme Court declaring that unborn children are protected by the 14th amendment, then you will flip to my side.
They’ve insisted, over and over, that they would not consider any candidate from Obama. It’s not the candidate, it’s the timing, they say. Are you accusing the Senate leadership of baldface lying?
