View Single Post
Old 10-06-2005, 06:27 PM   #3 (permalink)
politicophile
Addict
 
politicophile's Avatar
 
Quote:
“Almost everyone would agree that the President should not nominate, and the Senate should not confirm, someone who thinks that the Constitution does not protect private property, or permits schools to be segregated on the basis of race, or allows government to suppress political dissent.”

Supporters of ideological investigation of judicial nominees cite examples of extreme ideologies in order to prove that nominees who hold certain beliefs should be voted down in the Senate. However, the three examples listed above would all be grounds for rejecting a nominee without having to consider ideology. To begin, anyone who thinks that the Constitution does not protect private property is being blatantly unfaithful to the plain text of the Constitution, which says, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated… but upon probable cause.” There is no question that private property is protected under the Constitution. Secondly, anyone familiar with Court precedent would understand that the unconstitutionality of school segregation was definitively established in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education. It would be highly irregular to overturn an established precedent that was itself an overturning of a much earlier precedent. Thus, a nominee’s opposition to Brown would indicate a lack of deference to established precedent. Finally, the first amendment is nearly universally understood to protect political dissent under “the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

It is thus maintained that, in the context of judicial nominations, ideology should not be used to determine the suitability of a candidate. The Constitution is a well-engineered document that does not lend itself to ridiculous interpretations. As a result, extremely disagreeable ideologies are definitionally divorced from the original text, and nominees holding these views can be rejected. Alternatively, any ideological stance that can be justified by an appeal to the letter of the Constitution should not be used by a Senator as an excuse for opposing the appointment of a nominee.

The other major power that Congress has over the judiciary is the ability to impeach Supreme Court Justices and remoce them from office. This safeguard against judicial excess could be misused by Congress to eliminate Justices who disagreed with the ideology of the majority party, as will be discussed.

“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

More specifically, the House of Representatives is given the power of impeachments. “The House of Representatives shall… have the sole Power of Impeachment.” In the event of an impeachment, the Senate would then act as a jury for the case. “The Senate shall have the sole power to try all Impeachments.” The Senators vote on articles of impeachment and, should any article receive supermajority support, the officer in question would be removed.

Questions surrounding the appropriate grounds for impeachment have centered on the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors”. The Framers specified that treason and bribery were included in this category, but they did not give any other examples. This has led to some significant disagreements over which offenses are severe enough to merit impeachment.

Last edited by politicophile; 10-06-2005 at 09:10 PM..
politicophile is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360