Some more on Ted:Kennedy on Roberts
July 25, 2005; Page A14
In his two years on the appeals bench, Supreme Court nominee John Roberts has authored about 40 opinions, but it's a one-and-a-half page dissent that has Ted Kennedy fulminating. The Senator from Massachusetts is outraged about a Commerce Clause case called Rancho Viejo v. Norton, which, in the Kennedy legal interpretation, threatens "Social Security, Medicare, the minimum wage" and the environment. Is that all?
In Rancho Viejo, a real-estate company challenged the Interior Department's application of the Endangered Species Act to halt a project that might disturb an endangered species known as the arroyo Southwestern toad, whose picture we publish nearby. At issue was Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce -- in this case, the movement of the toad, which, as Judge Roberts pointed out, is entirely intrastate. The toad is a homebody; it does not travel out of California.
It's a long hop from the arroyo toad to Social Security or the minimum wage, and we confess to some difficulty in following Senator Kennedy's line of reasoning. Nor do we agree that the interpretation of the Commerce Clause is "settled," as he asserts. If anything, the Supreme Court confused matters in the past term.
For the rest of the story:
online.wsj.com |
