Personal Finance

James A. Chamblee · Guest

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46798-2004Nov12.html

The Right's Kind of Activism

By Michael Kinsley

Sunday, November 14, 2004; Page B07

What does President Bush mean, if anything, when he says that his kind of
judge "knows the difference between personal opinion and the strict
interpretation of the law"? Taken literally, this simply means he wants
judges who agree with him. Every judge sincerely believes that he or she is
interpreting the law properly.

But Bush's complaint must be understood in the context of Republican Party
history over the past half-century. Ever since Chief Justice Earl Warren and
Brown v. Board of Education (the 1954 school desegregation case),
conservatives have complained about "activist" judges who allegedly impose
their own liberal dictates on the country with no legal basis. Taking up
this rallying cry is one way Republicans won the South. Even southern
conservatives don't publicly complain about Brown anymore, of course. But
denouncing activist judges is now Republican boilerplate.

Judges make decisions and impose their will all the time. That's their job.
When does this generally salutary activity turn into the dread judicial
activism? If activism has any specific meaning, it means judges overruling
laws and policies put in place by the democratically elected branches of
government. It also means federal judges overruling policies enacted by the
individual states.

George W. Bush may get to appoint as many as four Supreme Court justices,
including the chief. But the complaint about activism has been quaint for
decades. All three chief justices since the "activism" fuss began were
appointed by Republican presidents. Earl Warren, it's true, was a bitter
surprise to Republicans, but Warren Burger and William Rehnquist were not.
Liberal judicial activism peaked with Roe v. Wade, the 1973 abortion
decision, and has been in retreat for longer than it lasted.

Complaints about judicial activism are a habit left over from powerlessness.
They seem especially retro when held up against today's ambitious Republican
judicial agenda. With one apparent exception, the major items on it are
demands for federal judges to override Congress or states' rights.
Republicans cheer, for example, when courts overturn state or federal -- or
even private -- affirmative action programs, and they boo when such programs
are allowed to continue unmolested. They have great hopes -- largely
unrealized, so far -- for the "takings" clause of the Fifth Amendment as a
tool for overturning environmental regulations or any other government
policies that might reduce the value of someone's property. There is even a
move afoot in the Senate to have Democratic filibusters against Bush's
judicial nominees ruled unconstitutional. That would be activism squared.

And let's not forget that the Bush administration owes its very existence to
the boldest act of judicial activism in a generation: the Supreme Court
ruling that settled the 2000 presidential election dispute. Bush v. Gore
made imaginative use of the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause to
reverse the Florida Supreme Court's interpretation of its own state election
laws.

Republicans will protest, sincerely if not always correctly, that these
examples are all legitimate interpretations of the Constitution and not just
invitations for judges to take a power trip. But that's the point. One
person's constitutional interpretation is another person's judicial rampage.
Neither party has a magic formula for determining which is which, and
neither can resist trying to enact its agenda through judicial fiat when it
gets the chance.

The "apparent" exception to the activist nature of the Republican judicial
wish list is abortion. Although I am pro-choice, I was taught in law school,
and still believe, that Roe v. Wade is a muddle of bad reasoning and an
authentic example of judicial overreaching. I also believe it was a
political disaster for liberals. Roe is what first politicized religious
conservatives while cutting off a political process that was legalizing
abortion state by state anyway. Three decades later, that awakened giant
controls the government.

But has anybody read the 2004 Republican platform on abortion? It doesn't
merely call for reversal of Roe v. Wade. It calls for "legislation to make
it clear that the 14th Amendment's protections apply to unborn children,"
and for judges who believe likewise. If fetuses are "persons" under the 14th
Amendment, which guarantees all persons "equal protection of the law,"
abortion will be illegal whether a state or Congress wants to legalize it or
not. More than that: There could be no legal distinction between the rights
of fetuses and the rights of human beings after birth. So, just for example,
a woman who procured an abortion would have to be prosecuted as if she had
hired a gunman to murder her child. The doctor would have to be treated like
the gunman. If the state had a death penalty, it would have to apply to
both. And the party that now controls all three branches of government says
this is already the case. Legislation is only needed to "make it clear," and
judges are needed who will enforce it.

But no "activism," please. The Republican Party can't stand that.

The writer is editorial and opinion editor of the Los Angeles Times.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

	Personal Finance Forum Index -> Retirement Planning	All times are GMT
Page 1 of 1