Monday, November 29, 2010

Judicial Activism Gave Bush The Presidency

newyorker:    On the tenth anniversary of Bush v. Gore, Jeffrey Toobin looks at the Supreme Court case that “damaged the Court’s honor”:  “What made the decision in Bush v. Gore so startling was that it was the work of Justices who were considered, to greater or lesser extents, judicial conservatives. On many occasions, these Justices had said that they believed in the preëminence of states’ rights, in a narrow conception of the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and, above all, in judicial restraint. Bush v. Gore violated those principles. The Supreme Court stepped into the case even though the Florida Supreme Court had been interpreting Florida law; the majority found a violation of the rights of George W. Bush, a white man, to equal protection when these same Justices were becoming ever more stingy in finding violations of the rights of African-Americans; and the Court stopped the recount even before it was completed, and before the Florida courts had a chance to iron out any problems—a classic example of judicial activism, not judicial restraint, by the majority.”  Toobin will be talking with readers about the case and the Court at 3 PM ET. Join him.

newyorker:

On the tenth anniversary of Bush v. Gore, Jeffrey Toobin looks at the Supreme Court case that “damaged the Court’s honor”:


“What made the decision in Bush v. Gore so startling was that it was the work of Justices who were considered, to greater or lesser extents, judicial conservatives. On many occasions, these Justices had said that they believed in the preëminence of states’ rights, in a narrow conception of the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and, above all, in judicial restraint. Bush v. Gore violated those principles. The Supreme Court stepped into the case even though the Florida Supreme Court had been interpreting Florida law; the majority found a violation of the rights of George W. Bush, a white man, to equal protection when these same Justices were becoming ever more stingy in finding violations of the rights of African-Americans; and the Court stopped the recount even before it was completed, and before the Florida courts had a chance to iron out any problems—a classic example of judicial activism, not judicial restraint, by the majority.


Toobin will be talking with readers about the case and the Court at 3 PM ET. Join him.

For all the Right Wingers who decry judicial activism, you are the biggest perpetrators and beneficiaries of it. STFU.

Posted via email from liberalsarecool.com

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