What do you look for in a Supreme Court Justice?





When Americans are deciding this November who should be the next President of our great nation there are many things to look at. For me one of the most important things is what kind of justices they will nominate for the Supreme Court. One can make a good argument that the 9 people on the court are the most powerful in our nation, they can strike down laws or actions by any other branch both federal and state. There are currently 6 Justices that are 68 or older, with one being 88 years old, so the next President will likely nominate at least 1 Justice to the highest court in the land. So lets look at what the two presumptive nominees have said regarding judicial appointments. Senator McCain said in a speech on May 6th, "I will look for accomplished men and women with a proven record of excellence in the law, and a proven commitment to judicial restraint. I will look for people in the cast of John Roberts, Samuel Alito, and my friend the late William Rehnquist -- jurists of the highest caliber who know their own minds, and know the law, and know the difference. My nominees will understand that there are clear limits to the scope of judicial power, and clear limits to the scope of federal power. They will be men and women of experience and wisdom, and the humility that comes with both. They will do their work with impartiality, honor, and humanity, with an alert conscience, immune to flattery and fashionable theory, and faithful in all things to the Constitution of the United States." On the other hand Senator Obama has said that in order for a justice to be acceptable he has to share "one's deepest values, one's core concerns, one's broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one's empathy." The things Senator Obama looks for would make sense if you were selecting a therapist , but not a Supreme Court Justice. One's empathy is completely irrelevant to interpreting the law. The Supreme Court is supposed to be impartial and not inject one's personal feelings into cases, but strictly interpret the law. You would think since Obama graduated from Harvard Law School and was a Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago Law School he would know that empathy isn't relevant but you would be wrong. Senator Obama is just like all other liberals when is comes to the courts, they want to use it as a tool to advance agendas they can't through normal democratic means, I'll give an example. Let's take probably the most hot button issue that has come before the court, abortion. The famous case Roe v. Wade made it so that states couldn't outlaw abortion, if you support abortions then you would probably say that's good, but the court doesn't decided what is good. The question of the constitutionality of abortion isn't a question of whether it's moral or pragmatic but whether there is a constitutional right to have an abortion. Liberal justices have invented a right of abortion that is found nowhere in the constitutional because they think a women should have the right to choose. The flaw in this logic lies in the fact that we live in a democracy where what is or isn't moral or pragmatic isn't decided by 9 people in black robes, but by the people through elected representatives. In Roe v. Wade the legislature of the state of Texas had decided they didn't want abortion, but the Supreme Court took the power of the people to decided away. If there were votes in each state to decide whether the people wanted abortion to be legal or not some states would want it legal others would not, and that is democracy. Instead of this method, which is the method the founders put in our constitution, Obama wants to appoint justices who find rights in the "penumbras" of other provisions, like the court did in Griswald v. Connecticut. The choice in November will be a clear one between Senator McCain's vision of a Supreme Court which lets the people decide ambiguous moral questions and just simply interprets the law, or Senator Obama's vision of a Supreme Court which creates rights it likes (abortion, privacy ect.) and dismisses rights it doesn't (gun, property ect.). In the next presidential term, with liberal justices Ruth Ginsburg and John Stevens turning 79 and 92 respectively, there is a real opportunity to have 6 solid originalist justices on the court. To me on the issue of justices there is no question, John McCain is the right choice.

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My answer you may not like,

My answer you may not like, but here goes: to my mind, Justice Holmes said it best: "the life of the law is in experience." I look for a justice who will measure the Constitution against practicalities, not agendas, remembering that the Constitution was framed & signed to promote the following: co-operation among states and their citizens; regulations regarding commerce uniform from one end of the nation to the other; separation of powers so that no one branch can become a tyranny; mutual safety of all rather than internal division; and the welfare, happiness, and the common good of all. Add in the major amendments, and you have a document whose message is that Union under separation of powers but uniformity of rules is good for the average person resident here, citizen or no. Or, as Justice Brennan once put it, "The Constitution is for the little guy."

Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas are the opposite of what I look for in a Justice. William Brennan, Hugo Black, Sandra Day O'Connor, Louis D. Brandeis, Justice Holmes: those are my models. On the present court, John Roberts is fair, if a bit too theoretical. My favorite is probably Judge Stevens.

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