My U.S. Senator, John Cornyn, just had his go at trying to discredit Supreme Court Justice nominee, Sonia Sotomayor.
In an attempt to paint certain Democratic judges—and, implicitly, Sotomayor—with the “judicial activism” brush, this is what he said as part of his opening remarks during the ongoing Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings:
The Supreme Court has even taken on the job of defining the rules for the game of golf. (If you’re curious, the case is PGA Tour v. Martin from 2001). Some people call this “judicial activism.” Whatever you call it, it’s pretty far from enforcing the written Constitution that the Framers proposed and the people enacted.
Senator Cornyn, whether you agree or not with the Supreme Court decision on PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin, the issue was not about the game of golf, the issue and the ruling were not about a “game.”
The issue and the ruling were about people, people with disabilities; about whether people with disabilities could be denied equal access to facilities and events in places of public accommodation on the basis of disability.
The Supreme Court, in its 7-2 decision, said that Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, modeled on the Civil Rights Act’s Title II, prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in places of public accommodation. It prohibits the PGA Tour “from denying Martin equal access to its tours on the basis of his disability.”
No, Senator Cornyn, the Supreme Court decision was not about a game, it was about discrimination.
Just as your claim that the Supreme Court, “over time…has invented new rights…has invented new constitutional rights,” becomes shamefully offensive when one considers that many of those so-called “new” or “invented” rights—such as against all forms of discrimination—have always been enshrined in our Constitution. All the Supreme Court did was reaffirm those rights.
