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Jewish World Review May 4, 2005 / 25 Nisan, 5765 How to judge Bush's court picks? By Peter A. Brown
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Before the serious fireworks begin over President Bush's court nominees, we should focus on what constitutes reasonable grounds for rejecting them
It would make the torturous exercise Americans are about to experience much less painful and leave many fewer scars on the national psyche if we could agree in advance whether a nominee's political views are legitimate grounds for rejection.
It goes without saying that the Senate, empowered to confirm Bush's appointments, should reject those whom lawmakers feel lack sufficient integrity or competence to do the job.
The key question is whether these confirmation fights should rerun disagreements settled by the 2004 election over political philosophy and the direction of the country.
Should senators reject an appointee because they don't like his views and values, even though they reflect Bush's?
It is an important question.
Unless Bush's Senate opponents admit they just don't like the views of the president's choices, they may have to bring in extraneous matters to make it appear they are not just playing politics.
The sound and fury that are beginning to erupt over Bush's choice of John Bolton to be United Nations ambassador and the myriad appointments to the U.S. Courts of Appeals are just a prelude to the controversy that will erupt over the president's Supreme Court picks.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist is battling cancer, and several other justices are well past normal retirement age. Bush will almost certainly have at least one vacancy to fill once the Supreme Court term concludes at the end of June.
Before the personality and political backgrounds of those selections become known, we should think about what the criteria for rejection should be. Already interest groups on both sides of the political divide are spending millions of dollars gearing up for the fight to obfuscate that question.
Central to the reason we elect presidents is public confidence in their ability to pick the people to carry out the policies that they enunciate. That is, after all, a major reason voters chose Bush over John Kerry.
Even if political realities did not require presidents to pick supporters to staff their administrations, it would be ludicrous to expect them to tap people who disagreed with them on policy. Moreover, voters made a conscious choice about what kind of people they want in power by voting for Bush.
This president left no doubt in the recent campaign that he would put on the courts only those who share his belief judges should interpret the law, not make it from the bench.
In plain English, that meant he did not want judges who use their position to write opinions that create laws that lawmakers are unwilling to pass. Without saying so, Bush was talking about decisions that have created rights — such as gay marriage in some states — that have for the most part outraged conservatives and delighted liberals.
Because Bush won the election, the question now is: Should members of the minority who opposed him to begin with be able to stop those who share his political philosophy and priorities from taking office because of those views and values?
Or should the standard for rejecting his choice be a higher one: Namely, does a nominee fail to pass a reasonable threshold of competence, integrity and personal behavior?
In the abstract, it is hard for the reasonable person to argue, as are the Democrats about many judicial nominees and Bolton, that their political views are unacceptable. They know many, if not most, voters see this as letting politics get in the way of good government.
That is why they are trying to make the case Bolton is unfit to serve because of his supposedly prickly personality, and why you hear the phrase "judicial temperament" used by Democrats seeking a rational for their opposition to judges. If those standards were applied evenly, they would disqualify many, if not most, members of Congress.
Bolton was a principal architect of Bush's first-term foreign policy, which Democrats disliked. However, they know it is hard to sell the country on the idea that Bush should not be able to have him as our U.N. ambassador for that reason.
If Bush's critics can't persuade voters to reject nominees because of their political views, we may see efforts to drag the current U.S. Courts of Appeals nominees and the expected Supreme Court choice(s) through the mud.
Remember, those opposed to Clarence Thomas' Supreme Court nomination first tried to argue his political views made him unacceptable. When that didn't work, they found Anita Hill to claim he sexually harassed her.
It would be nice if we could avoid such foolishness and judge the president's nominees on competence and integrity.
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Peter A. Brown is an editorial page columnist for the Orlando Sentinel. Comment by clicking here. © 2005, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services |
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