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Major Supreme Court Appointment (May Be Sooner Than Later)
Today the Supreme Court convenes to hear two weeks of oral arguments.
Yesterday, however, it was announced that ailing Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist would miss both weeks due to his battle with thyroid cancer. This, of course, has sparked new concerns regarding Justice Rehnquist’s ability to continue.
A major component of the 2004 Presidential election was about who would sit on the nation’s highest court – and make decisions that will affect every person who lives in America.
It could be that there will be several appointments to the Supreme Court during President Bush’s second term. That is historical in magnitude.
Sandra Day O’Connor gave us an insight into the importance of having the right people sitting on the High Court during a speech at Georgetown Law School last fall. She told the law students that other countries’ legal precedents would play a positive role in the U.S. court decisions. As if that wasn’t frightening enough, it is generally know that as many as four of her Supreme Court colleagues hold her globalist views. That is terrifying.
In recent years, judges have trended toward finding foreign precedent for rewriting American law. It’s already been felt in two culture-busting decisions: the approval of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts and the legalization of sodomy in a Texas case.
This actually threatens the rule of law itself – which has defined America from its inception.
Trent England, a legal policy analyst for The Heritage Foundation, said allowing foreign laws to affect our system threatens to return us to the common-law structure our Founders rejected. “The reason our Constitution exists,� he said, “was to distinguish us from foreign precedent, to set us aside from the nightmares that European governments had generated.�
So, who will President Bush nominate to succeed the conservative Chief Justice Rehnquist?
It is rumored around Washington that it may well be U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
And what is his position? It’s good news for those of us who hold to traditional values.
Scalia also makes speeches and in a recent speech at Ave Maria School of Law he focused a great deal on the importance of tradition. He decried judges who use “abstractions� to interpret religious issues, rather than the Constitution itself. He said the Constitution says what it says “and does not say what it does not say.�
Scalia also used Roe v. Wade as an example where the Court ignored many long-standing rulings against abortion. He said, “The Court discovered in 1973 something that was in violation of the Constitution based on an abstract principle, a right to privacy that’s not found in the Constitution.�
He affirmed that unlike liberal progressives, he did not believe that the Constitution is a changing, evolving document. He believes the Constitution is unchanging. Scalia said, “Social practices may change and our understanding of things may change, but that’s not something that should come from the initiative of unelected judges.�
Scalia also said judges need a dose of humility, noting they’re not supposed to have their own agendas or use their positions to enforce their own values.
We can only imagine the political confrontation that will emerge as these kinds of nominations are put forth.
At the appropriate time, all who hold to traditional values will need to mobilize and communicate with our elected representatives.
Based on the 2004 election –- I think we can do that.
President Harry Truman understood the importance of laws and the importance of their origin. He said, “The fundamental basis of this nation’s law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we got from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul.�
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Gary Randall
President & Chairman
Faith and Freedom Foundation
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