Supreme Court Pick

From what I’ve read the Roberts pick is a good one; all the right people are cheering for it, and the guy already got a unanimous approval to the Circuit Court by a less Republican Senate. PBryon, however, points out that as a man and a father I shouldn’t support a guy who dresses his son in saddle shoes (not to mention the seersucker suit with short pants). I’ll blame that one on his wife.

So how can he possibly be rejected to the Supreme Court? Can the Dems claim that it is OK to have a partisan ideologue in the Circuit Court but not the SC?

Well, that is the argument the Democrats will have to make, and my guess is that they’ll be reluctant to make it. Many of the more moderate Democrats, and most of those who comprise the set of “compromise” Senators who delayed the nuclear option, face re-election soon in states that went for Bush. A state that goes for Bush, but also supports a Democratic Senator, is one that generally prefers the social safety net offered by Democrats, but the cultural conservatism offered by Republicans. They won’t cotton well to a Senator who will deny them one, and a Democrat who tries to lead the charge against these guys could be sharing a cubicle with Tom Daschle.

That said, clearly a person at the SC has more power than one at the Circuit, and so what one might tolerate at the Circuit level one could reasonably oppose at the SC level. I was intrigued by two quotes from Roberts: one from a brief he wrote while working for the Bush I admin saying that Roe v. Wade should be overturned, and one from his confirmation hearings to the Circuit Court where he said that he considers Roe the settled law of the land. Now, in writing for the Bush admin, his writings had to reflect the views of that administration, and so the views are not technically his own. The question is: what is his view?

I would say that what Roberts said in his prior confirmation hearings are not necessarily his view of what can happen at the SC level. To me, his statement clearly meant that he doesn’t have the authority to overturn the Supreme Court from a lower bench. But doesn’t all of that change when he is at the Supreme Court? It wouldn’t be the first decision reversed by a subsequent Supreme Court, would it?

Independent of the argument of the legality of abortion, I’ve always considered the argument of the Constitutionality of abortion laughable on its face. But once a Supreme Court has decided, apparently that is the only argument for Constitutionality that one needs. Now, it goes without saying that there was a political demand for abortion rights prior to Roe v. Wade that went unsatisfied under many prior Supreme Courts’ interpretations of the Constitution, which made Roe v. Wade a reversal of what was clearly the “settled law of the land.” What’s good for the goose …

Here is an idea - reverse it, and then let Ted Kennedy start the Amendment process to have it democratically become the law of the land, if it has the legs to go the distance. Of course, it doesn't and never has, indicating that no one who actually ratified the Constitution was signing onto Roe v. Wade. Note that if Roe was reversed, it would merely restore the states to a position of regulating abortion, it wouldn't make it illegal. Even absent an Amendment, individual states could democratically choose it. The interesting implication would be this - absent the anticipation of the possibility of reversing the reversal with another SC pick, I would anticipate that abortion would loom less large in the Presidential elections, and I think that, on balance, that would favor Democrats. There is a cloud to every silver lining.