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News, Spin

Can’t get no (Supreme Court action)

Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock

Thursday, July 21, 2005. When we say the president names a nominee who then gets the appointment following the advice and consent of the Senate, we mean everyone from the Cabinet and a few top Executive Branch positions to all the federal judges.

So far as those who work in the Executive Branch, we like to say that the president should pick his own team and the Senate grills these folks with that in mind. The Senate has by definition a harder edge when it, first by the Judiciary Committee, considers judges and justices. The members of the country’s judicial branch are independent of both Congress and the presidency.

So when it comes to President Bush’s selection of John Roberts, who is fairly young and only two years an appeals court judge at that, I bet I won’t like him much, especially as we learn about his conservative judicial philosophy. Now is a very good time for me to say this, as ignorant as I am so far about John Roberts. I hope the Senate confirms him quickly and without much headbanging on anyone’s part.

It’s Bush’s turn. He is going to name someone he believes in. When the Democrats manage to retake the office, they’ll get a chance, and opposing senators, not to mention lobbyists and grass-roots organizations, and commentators and video gasbags, will shout a lot then.

Also, I do hope Roberts is a judicial activist. That is such a loaded term yet both naive and ambiguous. The judiciary is fully a third of our government. They have to perform their lifetime appointments as they see fit. That is by being activists in their fashion, and thus independent of Congress, the president, special interests, the press and even Brick layers as myself.

If various judges do a tap dance on constitutional democracy, or if only a consistent majority of the Supreme Court worries a majority of us, then we vote in a new president who’ll gradually put in his sort of judicial activist. If it gets really bad, there’s always the impeachment process for individual judges and justices. Too bad, though, we save impeachment for the small stuff. -30-

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