President Obama wants the Senate, which has a Republican
majority, to consider and confirm his Supreme Court nominee. He thinks the Senate’s refusal to even
consider a nominee with a Presidential election coming up is a political move
that is unworthy of the Supreme Court and an unconstitutional act in itself.
Yet I think we all know that if Justice Ginsburg had been
the one who died instead of Scalia, and President Obama were a Republican, and
the Senate was Democratically controlled, the Senate would not have hearings on
her replacement this year, and everybody would agree with that decision. In fact, in 1992 Joe Biden was head of the Senate
Judiciary Committee, and he said pretty much the same thing in a similar
situation.
I think that calling the Republicans’ refusal to hold
hearings on this nominee is political itself and tries to ignore the real issue
and keep it from the public consciousness.
Politics in general is when a political party just thinks in
terms of advancing its political party; everything is about putting or keeping their
party in power and not wanting the other party to get any credit for doing
anything good or doing anything that will hurt that first party’s political
success in the future.
But we are way beyond that now. Political philosophy now transcends political
parties, though the two major parties tend to align with these vastly
contrasting political philosophies.
One view is that the founders of our country wrote a
Constitution that created the greatest nation on earth, and we need to
understand and follow the principles that guided their thinking.
The other view is that those early founders, though smart
people for their time, were at heart racists, phobic, and actually
unenlightened on so many things scientifically and economically. We have learned a lot since their time, and
we think we can do better. Besides a lot
of new things have happened since then which may require some adjustments and
updating in our understanding of the Constitution. Besides, much of our supposed success anyway was
due to our oppression of minorities and workers in general
The consequences of these views reflect in many of the major
decisions these political parties make today, and they also reflect in the
thinking of those people who act at judges.
We are finding that things that our country has long believed in and
practiced are now all of a sudden unconstitutional, like, for example, religious
symbols in public places.
There are also rising sentiments to modify the Bill of
Rights to protect us from hate speech, discriminatory behavior, and gun
violence. Where some see very clear
wording: “the right of the people to
keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” or “Congress shall make no
law . . . prohibiting the free exercise [of religion],” others are seeing newly
recognized values that supersede these rights and which now must be recognized
in law.
These questions go far beyond political parties, though as
noted, most of those who hold each view belong to the same political party.
And for those who are afraid that the Republicans’ action is
politicizing our Supreme Court, well, it’s too late for that. When a Supreme Court justice can take the Administration’s
argument that people who don’t buy health insurance have to pay a penalty, and
then call it a tax instead of a penalty, contrary to the argument that was made,
then I think the Supreme Court has gone from interpreting law to advancing politics. And so
a Supreme Court justice’s politics has now become more relevant than his education
and experience.
