It's been a couple of interesting weeks for all concerned.
Kavanaugh has been sworn in at this point and there are celebrations, cries of anger, sighs of relief, and, on my part, a certain astonishment that the GOP senators actually did what they were supposed to do.
I wanted to talk about the Supreme Court (SC) for a moment. My interest was not in the discussion these last couple of weeks. I'm not really surprised by that, just perhaps a bit disappointed.
My view of the court is that it's one more check on the powers of the legislature and the executive branch.
And that is all it should be. I appreciate that others don't see it that way.
It's (I'll assume I'm right for the moment) a check in that nothing that the other two branches of government does can be in violation of the constitution. As society in this country has evolved, the articles of the constitution have to be interpreted in light of this evolution.
To some extent I have no problem with that. Of course we all decide where the court should lean and not lean and interpret and not interpret.
What I don't understand is why anyone would want an activist court. Do they really want to turn the court into a super legislate body? Is it not clear that the left/right make up of the court will shift from time to time? It's the old goose / gander issue. But if the court is not a legislative body, then you don't have the problem when the make up of the court switches polarity.
I'll talk about guns for the moment. They are specifically mentioned in the constitution. And it is still a contentious issue. Many other "rights" cannot be found in it. And some of those are considered sacred no matter how much fine parsing was required "find" them in this old document.
The other issue is, of course, abortion. Now, you can search the constitution backwards and forwards and there is no direction proved in it for the "right" to terminate a pregnancy. It had to be "found." Ok, public opinion changed and the people nudged enough and there it was. Now it is the litmus test of any prospective justice by the left. And Kavanaugh declared that he thought Rowe v. Wade was settled law.
Personally, I don't care if anyone wants to abort. I used to think that it would be a difficult decision to make and I'm willing to allow the person/people involved to make that decision. I mentioned that to a female friend who informed me that the women in her circle saw it as birth control and didn't give it a lot of thought. We can discuss sampling size and all of that, but I'm willing to let this be decided at a very local level. I can also understand those who think it's a pretty bad business and ought to be outlawed. It's not a simple issue, I think, and therefor the legislature ought to be deciding it, not the courts. And I think it ought to be a state matter and not a federal one. If some states want to allow or outlaw, that is their call.
It seemed to me that abortion was the only issue in play this time around. The tweets coming from notable entertainers, talked of other things, but basically it boiled down to abortion.
The SC is petitioned to decide cases. They decide which ones to take on. They do not take up Roe v. Wade on their own. So unless those issues come up in a case and the case is taken up and then and only then is Roe in jeopardy.
I drawing from my law class for a lot of this...
Courts don't usually take on large issues. They are very happy to decide a case on very narrow grounds, frequently technical.
They also on occasion will not to take on cases where someone got screwed or a grave injustice has happened. They even will not take on cases where they basically already decided the issue and it came up again and they let a contradictory decision stand. They have some consistency issues and they are a court of law (we hope) and not one of justice. (Let me digress a moment and talk about my law professor's take. When he was in law school, his professor told them that they were going to take up the SC at some other point, as it was "all politics" in any case. And certainly when a case comes up is more important than the case itself. FDR had issues, we have the internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry in WW II. The courts were involved and had no problem doing some very political things.)
But the unhappiness this last two weeks was an attempt to make sure that the court would, hopefully, operate as a super legislature and that its view point would be as left as possible.
We should probably discuss Dr. Ford for a moment. I'm not ignoring her. But her case was long on reconstructed memories and short on any corroborative detail. Was Kavanaugh involved? Was she assaulted? Basically, in my mind, there is no proof of any of that. I'm not going to keep someone from his dream job based on the total lack of any evidence.
Enough of the setting of the scene.
What has really bothered me as I've started to pay attention to federal government, is that the senate and the house have no interest in doing their job. Assuming that their job is running the country. If their job is getting reelected, then they are probably more on the ball.
One of the things about Obama's voting record in the Illinois legislature was that he voted "Present" a lot. Why is that even allowed? Shouldn't it be called "I can't vote either way as it might upset a potential voter" or "I stand for nothing"? And then he ought to be called out for cowardliness. Or tossed out for not doing his job. But it seems he was being groomed for other things and wanted the closet bones to be at a minimum. That doesn't sit well with me either.
Back to our legislators... They should be working by creating some national goals and figuring out how to get there. If the left and right can't come up with a national goal that we can all agree on, then they should do nothing.
What has happened a lot is that the left won't advance legislation that won't pass and have then relied on the courts to appease their constituents. We are then back to the "do nothing that will upset someone." Abortion and gay marriage are in this area. Even in California they couldn't get a pro gay marriage proposition to pass. The courts made that decision, the people for the most part were not on board with it.
The other item that happened a long time ago, but seems to me was a mistake, was the direct election of Senators. The original idea was that they were appointed by the states for a longish term and would be the more deliberate body; immune to short term delusions and were to make sure that states' interested were taken into account. But direct election removed those functions. I think those are useful checks to the house.
I think this has gotten long enough. I think Kavanaugh deserves to be where he is. I'm glad the protestors in the street didn't get to use the hecklers' veto. I hope Dr. Ford finds peace.
Stay tuned for the next post where we discuss the power of the timing of ideas!
