Right Wing Stumps for Activism

This came in an email to me this morning (march 25; americanprogress.org).

I hope people will be able to link this to the issue in Florica with Terri S. case.



American Progress Action Fund wrote:

JUDICIARY
Right Wing Stumps for Activism

Right-wing extremists and conservatives in Congress are using the Terri Schiavo case to attack America's judiciary and push for "more socially conservative judges and for a socially conservative Supreme Court." If they get their way, Americans – who, by large majorities, agreed with court rulings and opposed federal intervention in the Schiavo case – will have less protection from the courts the next time the federal government seeks to impose its ideology on their private lives. Despite America's disgust with the political maneuvering in the case, a small group of radicals has made Schiavo into a "potent symbol." Indeed, the legal struggle over whether to keep Schiavo alive is "blazing a direct political path from her hospice bed to the U.S. Senate's next confrontation over President Bush's judicial nominees."

ENCOURAGING ACTIVISM: President Bush has endorsed the use of federal power to discourage so-called "activist judges," but in the Schiavo case, Bush and congressional conservatives passed "extraordinary legislation" exhorting the judiciary to intervene, a maneuver which "encourage the sort of activism that they had long condemned." As the Washington Post's David Broder pointed out, "No one in the truncated congressional debate suggested that the Florida judges had been biased or negligent or anything but conscientious" in their evaluation of the Schiavo case. "The majority simply did not like the result of the case, and decided to intervene."

ABANDONING FEDERALISM: The result has been a "credibility gap for the Bush administration, Republicans in Congress and social conservatives." Charles Fried, a conservative Harvard law professor and former Reagan solicitor general, chastised conservatives for embracing "the kind of free-floating judicial activism, disregard for orderly procedure and contempt for the integrity of state processes that they quite rightly have denounced and sought to discipline for decades." He said Congress's intervention in the Schiavo case marked an "absurd departure from principles of federalism." Former Reagan and Bush I justice official Douglas Kmiec noted, "Congress' desire to get a particular outcome led it to invite the courts to be activist, and the judges have properly refused."

NO APPEAL: The right wing's invocation of federal law to support a "culture of life" has been especially ironic given its past actions on the death penalty. In 1996, a conservative Congress imposed specific limits on the ability of federal courts to review petitions from prisoners on death row, including a "bar on … reconsideration of legal and factual issues ruled upon by state courts in most instances." That law would have made it more difficult for federal courts to review, say, then-Gov. George Bush's 1997 decision to put the mentally retarded Terry Washington to death. Bush denied Washington's plea for clemency after a 31-minute briefing from then-legal counsel Alberto Gonzales – the briefing "failed to mention that Washington's mental limitations, and the fact that he and his ten siblings were regularly beaten … were never made known to the jury." As President Bush says, "In cases like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws, and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life."

THE 'BLESSING' OF TERRI SCHIAVO: Hoping to clear the way for President Bush's extremist Supreme Court nominees, conservatives are trying to use Schiavo to undermine America's faith in its courts. The Rev. Louis Sheldon, the head of the Traditional Values Coalition, called it a great "blessing" that Schiavo would expose the Court's "dictatorial control" over people's lives. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council – where Tom DeLay (R-TX) spoke last Friday – said the case will "increase the debate over whether or not the courts have overstepped their bounds." In fact, most Americans agree it was Congress that overstepped its bounds, with a new poll showing four in five people were opposed to federal intervention in the case.

ROBERTSON ATTACKING BLINDLY: Taking things one step further, Christian Broadcast Network Chairman Pat Robertson resorted to slandering a specific judge. "I don't know what Judge Greer's qualifications are," he told Sean Hannity, "but I do know in Florida you can serve in the bench without having any legal training whatsoever." Greer, the conservative Republican judge who ruled that Schiavo's feeding tube could be removed, has a law degree from Florida University and has been a Florida state judge for thirteen years, reelected several times.
(more topics)

This history of crazed idealouges is not a pretty one.