Why Schiavo demands attention: LAT ed. calls bill "constitutional coup"

EDITORIAL
The Midnight Coup

Republican leaders, eyeing an opportunity to appease their radical right-wing constituents, convened Congress over the weekend to shamelessly interject the federal government into the wrenching Schiavo family dispute. They brushed aside our federalist system of government, which assigns the resolution of such disputes to state law, and state judges. Even President Bush flew back from his ranch to Washington on Sunday to be in on what amounts to a constitutional coup d'etat.

Conservatives are the historical defenders of states' rights, and the supposed proponents of keeping big government out of people's lives, but this case once again shows that some social conservatives are happy to see the federal government acquire Stalinist proportions when imposing their morality on the rest of the country. So breathtaking was this attempted usurpation of power, wresting jurisdiction over a right-to-die case away from Florida's judiciary, that Republican leaders in the end had to agree to limit this legislation's applicability to the Schiavo case....

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Congress does act in other extraordinary cases on behalf of a specific individual, such as when it grants someone U.S. citizenship. But here, Congress is breaking new ground, trying to overturn a judicial decision by altering the Constitution's federalist scheme. This is the family law equivalent of the constitutionally banned "bill of attainder," legislation that seeks to convict someone of a crime....

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This case, headed like a bullet to the Supreme Court, must have most of the justices wishing for a Kevlar vest. The case is a marker for other battles — about medical assistance in ending a terminally ill life, as in the much-fought Oregon law and a similar proposal working its way through the California Legislature. About the rights of gay couples to assume spousal rights in medical decisions. Most painfully, about abortion....

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-schiavo21mar21,0,3594216.story

I was surprised at some on this board who insisted we not talk about this. The broader implications of this legislation are frightening.

I pity the poor judges who have to rule on this. It is a real test of the separation of powers as well as states rights.

The right are nothing but hypocrites. They scream about "activist" judges so then why are they fighting so hard to get their own judges appointed? Because the judges they want will be "activist" judges.

A judge in Florida just coincidently make a decision to end feeding of a comatose patient on a Friday as Congress is going into recess.
Congress generally does not convene business on Friday before recess.
Most opposition party members have already left the city. Most of the ruling party members are coincidently still in town.

This case was another set up scheme by the republicans to grab power and push the right wing agenda of forcing their beliefs on others.

It gave them the added bonus of playing the right to life party with out ever giving in on the abortion issue which can then be preserved as an issue for the next round of elections.

You know, what with that one commandmant that says to keep it "Holy" and all?

Why do the Republicans hate the Ten Commandments?

(sarcasm off)

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/032105Z.shtml

Casting Aside the Separation of Powers
By John Conyers, Jr.

By passing this bill, in this form, we will be intruding in the most sensitive possible family decision at the most ill-opportune time. It will be hard for this member to envision a case or circumstance that Congress will not be willing to involve itself in under this precedent.


By passing legislation which takes sides in an ongoing legal dispute, we will be casting aside the principle of separation of powers. We will be abandoning our role as a serious legislative branch, and take on the role not only of Judge, but of Doctor, Priest, Parent and Spouse.


By passing legislation which wrests jurisdiction away from a state judge and sends it to a single preselected federal court, we will abandon any pretense of federalism. The concept of a Jeffersonian Democracy as envisioned by the founders, and the states as "laboratories of democracy" as articulated by Justice Brandeis will lie in tatters.


By passing this legislation, in the complete absence of hearings or a committee markup, and with no opportunity for amendments, in complete violation of what we used to call "regular order," we will send a signal that the usual rules of conduct and procedure no longer apply when they are inconvenient to the Majority Party.


By passing this legislation, and taking this sensitive decision away from a spouse and giving it to a federal court, we will make it abundantly clear that all the talk last year about marriage being a "sacred trust between a man and a woman" was just that - talk.


My friends on the other side of the aisle will declare that this legislation is about principle, and morals and values.


But if this legislation was only about principle, why would the Majority party be distributing talking points in the other body declaring that "this is a great political issue" and that by passing this bill, "the pro-life base will be excited."?


If the president really cared about the issue of the removal of feeding tubes, why would he have signed a bill in Texas that allows hospitals to save money by removing feeding tubes over a family's objection?


If we really cared about saving lives, why would the Congress sit idly by while 40 million Americans have no health insurance, or while the president tries to cut billions of dollars from Medicaid - a virtual lifeline for millions of our citizens?


When all is said and done, this bill is about taking sides in a legal dispute. Last year, the Majority passed two bills stripping the federal courts of their power to review cases involving the Defense of Marriage Act and the Pledge of Allegiance because they feared they would read the Constitution too broadly. Last month, the Majority passed a class action bill that took jurisdiction away from state courts because they feared they would treat corporate wrongdoers too harshly. Today we are sending a case from the state courts to the federal courts even though it is the most extensively litigated "right to die" case in our nation's history.


There is only one principle at stake here - manipulating the court system to achieve pre-determined substantive outcomes. By passing this law, it should be obvious to all that we are no longer a nation of laws, but have been reduced to a nation of men. By passing this law, we will be telling our friends abroad that even though we expect them to live by the rule of law, Congress can ignore it when it doesn't suit our needs. By passing this law we diminish our nation as a democracy and ourselves as legislators.

on days like this I need to read stuff like this. What Congress did this weekend makes me feel alone, anxious and vulnerable. And when I posted about this, DUers felt we were talking too much about the case. I thought we should have taken to the streets about the case. It is frightening what Congress did from a legal perspective.

Thanks, Pallas, for adding these eloquent words from Conyers.

Students will no longer have to learn about "boring" concepts such as the separation of powers since the separation of powers no longer exists.

There are just so many things wrong with how Congress handled this case. Anyone who voted for this bill should be ashamed.

bill. Why are they so worked up? Did she even vote for bush last time? Maybe that's the problem.

in the Senate yesterday? Why is no one talking about that?

"No Bill of Attainder . . . shall be passed."

It's not about this one individual. It's about the anti-democracy, unConstitutional subversion of our system of laws: 1) the Fed/State set-up. 2) the INTRUSION into individual lives. 3) the wreaking HAVOC into the already existing end-of-life laws in every State.