SUPREME COURT ACTIVISM


The Supreme Court is the last bastion of liberal power. For over 40 years, black-robed tyrants have pushed a radical agenda in America with devastating results. Consider the damage inflicted since 1962:

• They banished prayer and the Bible from our public schools.
• They raised a “right of privacy” banner, under which 43 million babies have been aborted.
• They overthrew sodomy laws, opening the door to same-sex marriage.
• They called for the removal of the Ten Commandments from courthouses across the nation.

(excerpted from http://www.cbn.com/special/supremecourt/prayerpledge.asp)

But it doesn't stop there:

Affirmative action: In 2003, the justices upheld affirmative action in college admissions by a single vote. Favoring admission policies that give a boost to racial minorities under certain conditions were Stevens, O'Connor, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer. The swing vote was O'Connor, who in other cases had been the key fifth vote to strike down racial preferences in federal contracting and to impede the creation of "majority minority" congressional districts. Such districts have been drawn specifically to consolidate black or Hispanic voters to try to boost their political power.

Separation of church and state: By a 5-4 vote in 2002, the justices upheld publicly financed "vouchers" for parents who want to send their children to religious schools. In the majority were Rehnquist, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas. Two years earlier, the court's liberals led the way as the justices voted 6-3 to strike down pre-kickoff prayers at high school football games. Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas dissented.

Federal vs. state power: The court's conservatives (Rehnquist, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas) repeatedly have protected states from federal intervention in several areas. The court, for example, has prevented state workers who face discrimination because of age or disability from suing their employers for money damages under federal laws. Last term, however, O'Connor switched positions in a states' rights case to allow people with disabilities to sue states for access to courthouses under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Access to Medical Care

In Rush Prudential HMO, Inc. v. Moran, the Court upheld, 5-4, a state law that provided for independent review of the medical necessity of a procedure for which an HMO had denied coverage.

Voting Rights
In Bush v. Gore, which effectively decided the 2000 presidential election, the Court decided, 5-4, to stop the recount of ballots in Florida. The Court held that Florida’s recount plans violated the Equal Protection Clause because they failed to identify and require uniform, state-wide standards for accepting and rejecting contested ballots.

States’ Rights

In Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents, the Court ruled that Congress cannot authorize older state workers to recover money damages when their state employers discriminate against them in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA).

In United States v. Lopez, the Court struck down the federal Gun Free School Zones Act, which made it illegal for anyone to carry a firearm within 1000 feet of a school. It was the first time in almost 70 years that the Court invalidated a federal law on the grounds that it exceeded Congress’ authority to regulate interstate commerce.

Reproductive Freedom

In Stenberg v. Carhart, the Court, 5-4, struck down broadly written bans on late-term abortion procedures, holding that the laws unduly burdened the constitutional right to reproductive choice by failing to allow doctors to use the procedures to protect the health of the woman.

Church-State Separation

In Lee v. Weisman, the Supreme Court decided, 5-4, that it was unconstitutional for public school officials to sponsor religious prayers at graduation ceremonies.

Environmental Protection

In In Solid Waste Agency of N. Cook Cty. v. United States Army Corps of Engineers, the Supreme Court decided, 5-4, that the Clean Water Act did not give the federal government the authority to stop pollution in small lakes not connected to interstate waterways.

In Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation v. EPA, the Court held, 5-4, that the EPA could use its enforcement power under the Clean Air Act to block construction of a major pollutant-emitting plant in Alaska. The ruling allowed the federal government to override a state-issued permit allowing the plant’s construction.

Criminal Justice
In recent years, four justices, Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas, almost always have voted to uphold death sentences. Four other justices, Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer, have voted to overturn death sentences on occasion. Justice O'Connor is often a swing vote and has expressed growing concern over the administration of capital punishment. In 2001, she stated that “serious questions are being raised” about the death penalty and that “the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed.”

In Missouri v. Seibert, the Court held, 5-4, invalidated, as a circumvention of the Miranda rule’s requirements, the practice of obtaining a confession without giving Miranda warnings in order to re-elicit the same information, soon after, following such warnings.

Campaign Finance Reform

In McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, the Court, 5-4, held that legislation prohibiting unlimited “soft money” donations to political parties does not offend the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech.

Presidential Power

In Rasul v. Bush, the Court decided, 5-4, that detainees held at Guantanamo Bay on orders of the president have the right to pursue habeas corpus claims challenging the government’s right to hold them.

In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, five justices held that President Bush has the power to order American citizens captured on a foreign battlefield to be held on U.S. soil without express authorization from Congress; eight justices, however, held that such American citizen detainees have the right to pursue habeas corpus claims challenging the government’s right to hold them.

(from http://www.supremecourtwatch.org/)

Supreme Court Upholds Eminent Domain Abuse

WASHINGTON — Cities may bulldoze people's homes to make way for shopping malls or other private development, a divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday (06/23/2005), giving local governments broad power to seize private property to generate tax revenue.

In a scathing dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said the decision bowed to the rich and powerful at the expense of middle-class Americans... In dissent, O'Connor criticized the majority for abandoning the conservative principle of individual property rights and handing "disproportionate influence and power" to the well-heeled.

from: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,160479,00.html

Here's more food for thought:

A striking current example of how activist judges engage in the "evolution" of the so-called "living" Constitution was provided by the U.S. Supreme Court in June this year. In Atkins v Virginia, Justice John Paul Stevens rewrote the Eighth Amendment to outlaw capital punishment for those with low I.Q. scores. There isn't any basis in the Constitution for his decision. Justice Stevens based it on what he called "a national consensus," for which he cited "polling data." Stevens was appointed by the so-called moderate Republican, President Gerald Ford.

Justice Stevens apparently thinks that our laws can be made by public opinion polls instead of by our elected representatives. Justice Scalia properly rebuked him, retorting that the Stevens decision really was based on "nothing but the personal views" of the Justices.

from: http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/2002/oct02/psroct02.shtml

Since the Supreme Court assumed its current composition in 1994, by our count it has upheld or struck down 64 Congressional provisions. That legislation has concerned Social Security, church and state, and campaign finance, among many other issues. We examined the court's decisions in these cases and looked at how each justice voted, regardless of whether he or she concurred with the majority or dissented.

We found that justices vary widely in their inclination to strike down Congressional laws. Justice Clarence Thomas, appointed by President George H. W. Bush, was the most inclined, voting to invalidate 65.63 percent of those laws; Justice Stephen Breyer, appointed by President Bill Clinton, was the least, voting to invalidate 28.13 percent. The tally for all the justices appears below.

Thomas 65.63 %
Kennedy 64.06 %
Scalia 56.25 %
Rehnquist 46.88 %
O’Connor 46.77 %
Souter 42.19 %
Stevens 39.34 %
Ginsburg 39.06 %
Breyer 28.13 %

One conclusion our data suggests is that those justices often considered more "liberal" - Justices Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and John Paul Stevens - vote least frequently to overturn Congressional statutes, while those often labeled "conservative" vote more frequently to do so. At least by this measure (others are possible, of course), the latter group is the most activist.

from: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/06/opinion/06gewirtz.html?ex=1278302400&en=0e5fac7774080327&ei=5090

Certainly judicial activists who craft the meaning of legislation should be reined in, but, one can only wonder, if the legislature writes laws which are stricken by activist judges who feel they violate the constitution, how can we create new laws. You be the judge.