To: Neocon who wrote (111994 ) 12/12/2000 12:01:58 PM From: brutusdog Read Replies (1) | Respond to NEOCON, per our discussion yesterday:"Earlier this year, Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court justice who now is all but serving as the attorney for George W. Bush, let it be known that if Democrats won the presidency, he'd quit the court. He would leave because under a Democratic administration, he would have no shot at being named chief justice by Al Gore, according to the March issue of the Washingtonian magazine. Now, Scalia has taken charge of the election case for George W. Bush and will try to herd the conservatives this morning for the result he apparently wants: a Bush presidency, and, perhaps, the job of chief justice when William Rehnquist retires in a few years as is expected. Normally, judges disqualify themselves from cases in which they have a personal interest; if the naked ambition to be the court's chief was accurately attributed to him, then he has no business deciding this fight. Scalia, however, could not have been bolder in his advocacy for Bush's cause, and, by extension, his own. During oral arguments two weeks ago, he took shots at the Florida courts, which had said the most fundamental right in a democracy is the vote. No way, Scalia said. "There is no right of suffrage under Article II," he declared. In plain English, he said that the citizens have no constitutional right to vote for President. His reason is that the Constitution places that power in the hands of the state legislatures, although he did not mention that all 50 state legislatures submit the question to a popular vote. (Some transcripts of the Supreme Court session attributed this remark to Rehnquist, but Scalia apparently was the actual speaker.) Over the weekend, he took matters even further. --Jim Dwyer, 12/12/00nydailynews.com
