Tilting the Scales Rightward nytimes.com
A background op-ed piece on what's been going on in the federal courts for the last 20 years. Nothing that's not obvious to anybody who's been watching, but it's always good to understand how we got to where we are when things like this come up. After W puts another couple Scalia/Thomas types on the high court, it'll get considerably worse.
In the last 30 years, one glaring difference between
Republicans and Democrats has been that Republicans, unlike
Democrats, have been obsessed with the composition of the federal judiciary.
Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush had a distinct agenda for the nation's
courts: to reduce the powers of the federal government; scale back the rights of
those accused of crime; strike down affirmative action programs; and diminish
privacy rights, including the right to abortion. They sought judges who would
interpret the Constitution, and other federal law, in a way that would promote this
agenda.
Under President Bill Clinton, Republican senators were equally single- minded.
Showing little respect for presidential prerogatives, they did whatever they could to
block Mr. Clinton's judicial nominees. Sometimes Republican senators justified their
actions by labeling Clinton nominees as "liberal activists." Sometimes they offered no
reasons at all in refusing to schedule confirmation hearings.
By contrast, Democrats have been remarkably passive. Mr. Clinton chose centrists
like Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Democratic senators, largely
unwilling to base rejection of nominees on political disagreements, have usually
deferred to Republican presidents. . . .
The current composition of the federal judiciary has been influenced by a sustained,
ideological program engineered by members of a single political party. The Senate
now has a constitutional right, even a duty, to restrain this effort. |
