Comments on: Is Judicial Activism from the Right Alright?

By: davidpsummers

davidpsummers — Wed, 30 May 2012 02:03:18 +0000

Judicial activism originally meant making new law from the bench. I find it a stretch to consider the legal issues over the individual mandate to be “judicial activism”. While I think the policy is a good one, I don’t think you can make a good argument that using the interstate commerce clause to require someone to engage in commerce is established law.

By: Dr. J

Dr. J — Wed, 30 May 2012 02:00:31 +0000

People have always had unequal influence. The premise of one-person-one-vote is that voters will eventually find a workable path regardless. The CU objectors uniformly claim to be standing up for democracy, yet obviously have very little faith in it.

Money is the tool we use to scale pretty much every process we have beyond the size of, say, a commune. The idea that a national government for 300 million people could run on anything else defies common sense.

By: ROBERT A. LEVINE, TMV Guest Voice Columnist

ROBERT A. LEVINE, TMV Guest Voice Columnist — Wed, 30 May 2012 01:41:34 +0000

Overturning bipartisan McCain-Feingold and allowing unrestricted funding of political campaigns by outside groups defies common sense. Providing unlimited power to the affluent to control advertising makes one person-one vote a joke, providing unequal influence over elections to those who have lots of money. It’s just unfair. And I doubt the Founding Fathers would have seen Citizens United as protecting free speech. Of course, we’ll never know.

By: Dr. J

Dr. J — Wed, 30 May 2012 00:15:27 +0000

Conservatives had previously argued that judicial activism was only credible when protecting rights that were present in the text of the constitution, or if intent of the framers of the constitution had been evident. These criteria were not met in this bald act of judicial activism by the Court, unleashing Super PACs upon the country.

One has to apply some pretty creative interpretation to the constitution to believe this argument.

The text of the first amendment says “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.” I will be the first to admit that it fails to say “we mean people acting on their own or collectively.” Neither does it say “we mean all 7 days of the week,” nor “yes, communists too.”

Its conciseness does not constitute a license for Congress to skewer our right with such distinctions. Robert, I’m sure you would agree that if Congress outlawed free speech on Sundays, the court would have a textual basis for overruling them. So I don’t see how you can claim that a right to market a political film has no justification in the text of the constitution.

By: dduck

dduck — Tue, 29 May 2012 19:43:37 +0000

Right or Left, too much is the problem.
CU was too much, I’m sure there is a good Left leaning example.

By: slamfu

slamfu — Tue, 29 May 2012 14:35:28 +0000

I’ve never liked the term judicial activism. It seems to imply that the judicial branch of the government should just sit there and do nothing. It is the 3rd branch of this government. They are the ones who HAVE to be educated in the ins and outs of legal process, in order to ensure that elected officials, who can be illiterate racist morons if they can get enough people to vote for them, don’t pass laws that violate our rights. The judicial branch is SUPPOSED to intervene in cases sometimes. Sometimes they are going to flub it, like with Citizens United. But to say they don’t have any place to make rulings is silly.

By: RP

RP — Tue, 29 May 2012 14:25:48 +0000

Judical activism is in the eye of the beholder at the time the decision is made. The Supreme court has to look to years into the future as to the impact that a law may have on citizens. Those that complain about jusicial activism are only looking at today. Who would argue that Brown V board of education was wrong? Roe v Wade is still being argued for a point of view of when life begins and that will never be settled for many, but the fact remains that women have the right to choose and for many today, unlike when the decision was announced, that was the right decision.

Now the court has the Affordable Care Act. The court is not deciding on the legality of the act itself, it is deciding on the requirement of everyone paying based on the commerce clause. What impact will requiring everyone to buy healthcare coverage now have on those 30 years from now when other things are causing fiscal damage to the economy? Long term care insurance, will everyone be forced to buy it? Funeral insurance (like Sweden)since the baby boomers are dieing and costing money?

Had the fee been a tax, that law would not evven be before the court. Pelosi said wait and read the bill. They did, found that the commerce clause was not meant for this purpose and now the court has to decide what this one law using the commerce clause would have on a host of things far into the future we can not even image at this point.