David Souter

Oh, damn, holy crap, Barack Obama is not even a year into his term and he gets to appoint a justice to the Supreme Court. And Legions of so called conservatives are shaking in their boots because “he will pick a liberal justice.” OF COURSE HE WILL YOU FUCK-TARDS. Liberal politician, liberal appointees. This is what happens when a party sweeps an election cycle, and the Conservative party in my country has had that free ride for eight gods damned years and squandered it like a kid in a baseball card store.

I am sick and tired of hearing this fear with David Souter’s retirement. First David Souter, while appointed by a republican president, was not exactly a strictly conservative judge. Souter was a champion for personal liberty and responsibility. If a case had to do with Government vs. people, he generally sided with the people. This in my mind made him a very conservative judge, as he was a check on federal power. I would like to see his successor in a similar vein.

Case in point is the infamous Planned Parenthood v. Casey trial, which was a challenge to the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act in 1992. The States argument was poor, and part of it was a direct request to overturn Roe V Wade. Souter wrote that Roe v. Wade should not be overturned because it would be surrender to political pressure... So to overrule under fire in the absence of the most compelling reason to re-examine a watershed decision would subvert the Court's legitimacy beyond any serious question.”

Long Story short, he was not going to vote to overturn a ruling based on the sole argument of being asked nicely.

The most distressing part about this appointment coming up is the expectations of the people. Again, it was not until about a quarter of a century ago that nobody even cared about Supreme Court nominations. The average vote by the senate for approval was in the nineties, and in pre vote hearings, often times nominees did not even show up. It was not until Ronald Regan’s nomination of Sandra Day O’Conner that such a practice became commonplace, and damned the nomination of Robert Bork in 1987.

I wander around my workplace and I am surprised to see how many people think that the High Court in this country actually has to answer to some other federal agency. Buzz Words and talking points like Judicial Activism arise, as though to accuse the Courts of trying to legislate from their seats.

The Supreme Court was set up as a third equal and separate branch of federal power, not as a division of the Department of Justice. They are an island, and through the constitution act as the final, almighty and ever present arbiter of what is and is not law in this land. The Marbury v Madison case opinion perfectly outlines this.

“It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases must, of necessity, expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the Courts must decide on the operation of each.
So, if a law be in opposition to the Constitution, if both the law and the Constitution apply to a particular case, so that the Court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the Constitution, or conformably to the Constitution, disregarding the law, the Court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty. If, then, the Courts are to regard the Constitution, and the Constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the Legislature, the Constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply.
Those, then, who controvert the principle that the Constitution is to be considered in court as a paramount law, are reduced to the necessity of maintaining that courts must close their eyes on the Constitution, and see only the law.
This doctrine would subvert the very foundation of all written constitutions.”
I think that the best nominee would be one who would hold to that ideal very closely, criticisms of activism be damned.