U.S. Supreme Court = sickening sellout

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WandaFuca

Social climber

From the gettin place

Feb 14, 2010 - 03:01am PT

When I first started driving, it was drilled into me that driving was a privilege and not a right.

And so it should be for corporations.

Incorporation and everything that flows from it should be considered a privilege, not a right.

Jingy

Social climber

Nowhere

Jun 28, 2010 - 04:01pm PT

I know this is OT from the original post...

but I think it is pertanant to the conversation...

Just overheard Rookie Senator from Minnesota saying some rather American statements about the American lexicon as it pertains to the USSC...

I'll get a link to the hearings so that you all do not have to go fishing to find it yourselves.. later

but for now.. here is the angle...

"One of the great mysteries of modern politics today is how the state of Minnesota could have produced both Rep. Michele Bachmann (R) and Democrat Sen. Al Franken. While Bachmann this week was accusing the Obama administration of “fleecing” BP, urging its execs not to be “chumps,” and suggesting that a $20 billion escrow fund for oil spill victims was a form of “wealth redistribution,” Franken Thursday night was wowing an audience of lawyers with a remarkably pointed critique of the Roberts court and its efforts to enhance the power of already powerful corporations. The contrast couldn’t be more different.

Speaking at the American Constitution Society’s annual convention in DC, Franken offered up his unique blend of political criticism and comic delivery in a speech that sounded an awful lot like a rallying cry for Congress to push back against the Supreme Court’s pro-business decisionmaking. He honed in on the conservative Federalist Society and bashed the Roberts court for its overreach in cases like Citizens United, where the court answered questions it wasn’t even asked. “I mean, I don’t speak Latin. But unless stare decisis means ‘overturn stuff,’ then maybe it’s time for conservatives to stop calling other people ‘dangerous radicals,’” he said.

Conservatives, Franken said, have “distorted our constitutional discourse to make it sound like the Court’s rulings don’t matter to ordinary people, but only to the undeserving riff-raff at the margins of society. So unless you want to get a late-term abortion, burn a flag in the town square, or get federal funding for your pornographic artwork, you really don’t need to worry about what the Supreme Court is up to.” Much of Franken’s speech concerned the real people whose lives are indeed affected by the court’s decisions, including Jaime Leigh Jones, the KBR employee who was allegedly gang-raped by her co-workers in Iraq and whose case Franken has championed."

Fat Dad

Trad climber

Los Angeles, CA

Topic Author's Reply - Jun 28, 2010 - 08:13pm PT

Jingy,

Thanks for the update. I think this thread has gained a new relevance now that confirmation hearings for Kagen are starting to fire up.

Ironically, we'll have a lot more self serving statements from the right demanding that she be an impartial jurist and not legislate from the bench, although they've demonstrated with their last three appointments (Thomas, Alito and Roberts) that they want a jurist who is anything but that. One senator on the judiciary committee put it well (from the LA Times):

'Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) used his opening statement at...the confirmation hearing to criticize the Roberts court for rulings that he said blurred the line "between the legislative and judicial branches."

Cardin quoted from the dissent by Justice John Paul Stevens in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, where he wrote that five justices in the majority "changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law."'

the kid

Trad climber

fayetteville, wv

Jun 29, 2010 - 01:42pm PT

this and the hand gun law they just overturned in Chicago shows just how deep MONEY AND POWER go in our Govt.
By the people for the people has been replaced..
By the corp for the corp, and bail us out when the market goes "free".

This push from the Right for the last 30 years is paying off with these decisions.

Time to stand up for your rights- as the late great Bob Marley once sang..

smith/cosgrove 2012
in it to win it!

healyje

Trad climber

Portland, Oregon

Jun 29, 2010 - 01:53pm PT

Roberts and Alito are the very definition of judicial activism and entirely dedicated to the expansion of executive power - that's why they were appointed. I suspect Kagan will in the end be a poor choice as she often leans both conservative and has been a supporter of expanded executive power.

Dropline

Mountain climber

Somewhere Up There

Jun 29, 2010 - 02:01pm PT

smith/cosgrove 2012

Kurt(Smith), it's hard to imagine that Scott(Cosgrove) would be anything other than pro gun.

D

JEleazarian

Trad climber

Fresno CA

Jun 29, 2010 - 03:10pm PT

I understand the Democrats' strategy is now to use Newspeak to turn the tables on the traditional meaning of judicial activism. Traditional judicial activism increases the power of the courts of which the activists are members. Examples include the current majority of the Ninth Circuit, that often refuses to follow controlling Supreme Court precedent, as well as the California Supreme Court in the 1950's through the recall of Rose Bird.

The examples Schumer and his fellow Democrats use of alleged judicial activism -- for example, the court ruling that "Congress shall make no law .. . abridging freedom of speech" means that Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech is hardly judicial activism. Neither is concluding that the right of the people to keep and bear arms means that people have the right to keep and bear arms. An activist court, such as the old California Supreme Court, would conclude the Congress meant that only the people they liked had those rights. That is, in effect, amending the Constitution without going through the amendment process.

Schumer's allegations aren't just intellectually dishonest, they're just plain dishonest.

John

Fat Dad

Trad climber

Los Angeles, CA

Topic Author's Reply - Jun 29, 2010 - 03:30pm PT

John,

I'm sorry but I find your response intellectually dishonest. As you well know, the Amendments and other portions of the Constitution are subject to reasonable interpretation. They weren't drafted with enabling language, so other statutes have to be and have been enacted to figure out where those boundries lie.

To use your 1st Amendment example, there are limits to that amendment. As Justice Holmes famously quipped, you can't yell fire in a crowded theater. Child pornography is banned for similar reasons. Courts have also upheld some restraints to commercial speech (hence the limits on tobacco advertising), but have not been inclined to do so with respect to political speech, given its greater importance in a democratic society.

The Court is not limited just by the language of the Constitution, but also by stare decisis, i.e., precedent. The Court does not, nor should, merely refer to the language in the Constitution and figure out where to go next, which seems to be what you're implying. They need to follow the precedent from earlier decisions on factually similar cases. I believe this is what Schumer is discussing in your example. I am wrong about that?

Jingy

Social climber

Nowhere

Jun 29, 2010 - 03:36pm PT

and here is the link to the remarks made above

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8i43ZfuXXRM

Franken has plenty of things to say about how powerful corporate interests, as it pertains to our constitution...

worth a view...

healyje

Trad climber

Portland, Oregon

Jun 29, 2010 - 04:07pm PT

Citizens United, and particularly the court inviting a round of arguments to expand the case, perfectly evidenced Robert's and Alito's activism.

JEleazarian

Trad climber

Fresno CA

Jun 29, 2010 - 04:21pm PT

Fat Dad,
Stare Decisis is not the same limit to the SCOTUS that it is to an inferior court. A district or circuit court is bound by controlling Supreme Court precedent. The Supreme Court itself is not, which is why, for example, we have Brown vs. Board of Education.

I have no problem about activism if the court went the other way on Citizens United -- even though I strongly disagree with that position -- unless they articulated an exception that said, say, that only government-approved speech was entitled to First Amendment protection. My problem with the minority opinion in Citizens United is with its reasoning, not with its activism. I think, as you point out, I didn't make that distinction clear, and, as I re-read my post, I probably overstated that point.

I have big problems, however, with, say, the Ninth Circuit ignoring controlling Supreme Court precedent, or the old California Supreme Court's imposition of comparative negligence, non-discrimination in rentals against families with children (when the legislature annually refused to enact such a statute), mandating expenditures and taxation, etc. Those courts are exceeding their enumerated powers. Even if their ideas are good, they have become the legislature.

The real danger in all of these sorts of matters comes because the court is enacting laws without all of the interested parties having an opportunity to participate. The legislature's members stand for election. Any interested party can participate and have its views considered by the simple expedient of emailing their legislators. Consider, in contrast, a suit such as the one in which the California Supreme Court legislated that California landlords may not discriminate against families with children. The California Supremes did so not on the basis of the California or US Constitution, but on an indefensible interpretation of existing California law. The parties before the court were the landlord on one side, and activist groups that had carefully chosen both the plaintiff, the defendant, and the court on the other. What about, say, renters who have no children? Weren't they affected by the outcome? Who represented them?

That case was judicial activism. The court legislated what the Legislature annually voted down. It may or may not have been a good idea, but it completely usurped the role of the legislature. To compare the Roberts court's decisions, where the court passed on the constitutionality of congressional enactments, with my California Supreme Court example is, quite simply, a lie. There is no comparison, and Schumer knows it. The press should, too.

John

Mighty Hiker

climber

Vancouver, B.C.

Nov 28, 2010 - 12:51am PT

Recently retired Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens, age 90, weighs in on why he now believes capital punishment is unconstitutional, and judicial activism by right wing judges. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/us/28memo.html?hp

It sounds like his essay will be a zinger.

apogee

climber

May 27, 2011 - 07:05pm PT

Corporate Donations Ban Unconstitutional, Judge Rules

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A U.S. judge has ruled that the campaign finance law banning corporations from making contributions to federal candidates is unconstitutional, saying that a recent Supreme Court decision gives companies the same right to donate as individual citizens enjoy.

(Judge James) Cacheris says that under the Supreme Court's landmark Citizens United decision last year, corporations have the right to give to federal candidates.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/27/corporate-donations-ban-ruling_n_868085.html

Great. That's just feckin' great. Another step in the unrelenting march towards corporate domination of democracy.

TGT

Social climber

So Cal

May 27, 2011 - 09:11pm PT

Only individuals should be permitted to donate to any political cause

So you are saying the right to "assemble" (form a group for common purpose)should not exist in the bill of rights?

TGT

Social climber

So Cal

May 27, 2011 - 10:00pm PT

Witch is exactly the same as saying their right to free speech should be restricted.

climbski2

Mountain climber

Anchorage AK

May 27, 2011 - 10:03pm PT

Government of the people by the people and for the people in the USA is toast until we pass a constitutional amendment providing severe penalties for anyone or any corporation that make a large donation of money or reaources to any candidate. Same penalty for the candidate. Suggest dissolution of corporation and serious time for individuals on both side of the transaction. Possibly even charging with treason.

TGT

Social climber

So Cal

May 27, 2011 - 10:07pm PT

Are you willing to institute the same restrictions on unions, political parties, homeowners associations?

Arem't you realy saying you want speech you don't like restricted?