Current Events vs. Founding Documents

Entry 37                        Submitted by: Mark Musselman

Current Event

Per transcript from This Week ABC, April 18, 2010 (full interview available on-line)

JAKE TAPPER: …………(regarding the Supreme Court nominee)…What advice would you give President Obama? Because Republicans are saying he’s not including them in this.
CLINTON: Well, I think for one thing, I had to do a little more of that because I never had a filibuster-proof Senate. And now there are 41 of them, although I think that a lot of those who come from more progressive states, the two Maine senators, the new senator from Massachusetts, a lot of them may think they already gave it the store on the health care deal or whatever they’re doing on financial reform. I think it will be very difficult to just outright block a Supreme Court nominee that’s otherwise qualified. Especially after the Democrats confirm, allowed a vote on Clarence Thomas, and Justice Scalia and a lot of other people who were — Justice Roberts, Chief Justice Roberts.

My advice to him would be to first of all see what the court is missing. Does it matter if he puts a Catholic or a Jewish person or someone of another faith on a court, there might—there would be no Protestants on the Supreme Court. Does that matter? Does there need to be another woman on the court? Should there be some other group represented? Because Justice Stevens was part of the four-person progressive block, he will of course nominate someone who will be part of that. We’ve seen the hard way in the Citizens United case and campaign finance and in Bush v. Gore, during the most bizarre rulings in the history of the Supreme Court and I think one of the five worst, what the consequences of that are.
But I would also not — I don’t expect him to intentionally pick a fight with the Senate, but he can’t avoid it. If he finds somebody that he thinks is just the best person, but the most important thing is he needs to be really proud of the people he puts on the court. The two people I put on the court have made me proud. I haven’t agreed with every decision they’ve made. That’s not the important thing. The important thing is that you think they’re smart and they’re competent and they understand the lives of ordinary people. Now one thing I think he should think about is have we gotten — have we gone too far in this process that assuming only judges can be elected? That somehow you’re not qualified if you weren’t a judge.
……..

VS

Supreme Court picks vs. The Constitution

Founding Document

The Federalist Papers, No 78; Quote by Alexander Hamilton on “Judicial Review”:
It is far more rational to suppose, that the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority. The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts.

We the People:
President Clinton nominated Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Stephen Breyer. His advice to President Obama was not based using the constitution as a reference to interpreting law, or on avoiding legislating from the bench. And yet we are to believe that his Supreme Court appointees are the guardian for constitutional compliance? Some officials’ appointments and approvals are based on politics instead of the Constitution; consequently the people become the last protector of it by whom they elect.