Sen. Clinton: Supreme Court 'Installed' Bush
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Sen. Clinton: Supreme Court 'Installed' Bush
By The Associated Press | New York Times
Tuesday, 23 July, 2002
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush v. Gore presidential election case is an
example of a hypocritical Supreme Court majority that broadens the rights of
states only when it serves conservative ends, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said
Tuesday.
Clinton, D-N.Y., criticized the court's recent trend of 5-4 cases that have
favored state power over federal control. The case that ended Florida ballot
recounts in the disputed 2000 presidential election was also a 5-4 vote, but it
stripped a state of power to administer its own laws, the former first lady said.
``Perhaps even more disturbing than the court's impulse to defend state and
local prerogatives is the selectivity of that impulse,'' Clinton told an audience of
law students, lawyers and judges at the liberal American Constitution Society.
States win the power struggle when they want to claim immunity from civil
rights lawsuits or get tough on criminals, but not when they want to limit
cigarette ads, help fund legal help for poor people, or ``follow their own election
laws,'' Clinton said.
The Bush v. Gore case centered on whether a fair recount could be done
under Florida election law and still give the state time to have its electors
included in the Electoral College.
Clinton called the court led by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist ``one of
the most activist, if not the most activist, Supreme Court ever in American
history.''
Conservatives, including President Bush, have criticized ``judicial activism,''
or the substitution of a judge's own views for established law. Conservatives
have pointed to the civil rights-era decisions of the court under Chief Justice
Warren Burger as examples of such activism.
Critics on the left have countered, as Clinton did Tuesday, that activism is
often in the eye of the beholder.
While the court has the power to strike down federal laws, it has been
historically reluctant to do so, Clinton noted.
The Warren court struck down federal laws in about 20 cases over 16 years,
she said. The Rehnquist court, in the last eight terms alone, has done so in 32
cases. Eleven of those were states' rights cases in which the state prevailed,
and many of those involved states trying to avoid ``enforcement of civil rights
guaranteed by federal law,'' Clinton said.
``In addition to installing an American president, the current Supreme Court
has invalidated federal laws at the most astounding rate in our nation's history,''
Clinton said to applause and laughter.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes.)
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© : t r u t h o u t 2002
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