Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (109811)	4/17/2005 12:14:43 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 793717

A prominent judge that has made many decisions on multiple levels will normally have a trend in these decisions. You can tell a lot about his judicial ideas unless he almost never writes any decisions (a "stealth candidate") My thinking is that, if we know too easily what he "believes," his qualifications for a job on the federal bench are diminished. My thinking is that if we have a good reason to feel that the judge would normally refrain from creating new ideas of constitutional law that aren't actually found in the constitution than his qualification for the job is enhanced. If you stack the process with nominees who conspicuously "believe" in "restoring the constitution," then you're going for revolution, not evolution. If you constrain your selections to Republicans with no history of judicial activism, then you nudge the judiciary in the direction you want it to go. What do you mean by "no history of judicial activism"? People who have written few decisions, or not faced cases where traditional forms of judicial activism would normally be relevant, or people who have written decisions solidly based on the constitution, perhaps even in areas where courts have frequently made decisions that are not solidly grounded in the constitution? Someone in the latter group will have little to distinquish himself from those who "conspicuously believe" in restoring the constitution", except perhaps that their rhetoric would be more mild. Someone in the former group isn't someone that you can reasonably count on exercising judicial restraint. Tim