Post-Schna-ulations

The Importance of 4 years, Part II

As a follow-up to a previous post in which I was talking about how the next president will be able to nominate a large number of federal judges over the next four years, I give you one of McSweeney's Daily Reasons to Dispatch Bush in it's entirety (caution: may cause nightmares):

DAY 130:
The Supreme Court's current membership came together 10 years ago; the court has not gone so long without a new jurist since 1823. Eight of the nine Supreme Court justices are now 65 or older; John Paul Stevens, part of the court's liberal minority, is 84, and Sandra Day O'Connor, who has voted with the liberals to form majorities on several occasions, is 74. Boyden Gray, the White House counsel to George H.W. Bush and founder of the Committee for Justice, has said that the next president "will appoint at least two and as many as four justices to the Supreme Court." Ralph G. Neas, the president of People for the American Way, a progressive organization, has made the same prediction.
If President Bush is re-elected and a liberal justice retires, it is likely that his appointee—or appointees—will move the court toward a willingness to restrict abortion and affirmative action and overturn civil rights protections. Bush has said that Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the court's most conservative members, are the models for his appointments. Samuel Alito, a 3rd Circuit Appeals Court judge believed to be a potential Bush nominee, has voted to uphold abortion regulations, including one requiring women to tell their husbands before having an abortion. That law was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1992. Miguel Estrada, whose nomination to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2001 was blocked by Democrats after the Bush administration refused to release memos Estrada had written as a government lawyer and Estrada refused to articulate the positions he had taken in the memos, is also thought to be a possible nominee.
Other judges considered contenders for a Bush nomination have similarly divisive records. Emilio Garza, a 5th Circuit Appeals Court judge, has criticized Roe v. Wade and said that abortion regulation should be left to the states. Alberto Gonzales, the White House counsel, wrote a memo in 2002 arguing that foreign fighters captured in Afghanistan were not covered by the Geneva Conventions. And Michael Luttig, a 4th Circuit Appeals Court judge, allowed a Virginia ban on "partial-birth" abortion to take effect while it was being challenged as unconstitutional, and later voted to uphold the law. It was invalidated after the Supreme Court struck down a similar ban in 2000.
The next president will also appoint many federal-appeals-court and trial judges, who also serve until they choose to retire. In his first term, Bush appointed 201.
(Sources: Joan Biskupic, "The Next President Could Tip High Court," USA Today, September 30, 2004. See article at: usatoday.com. Joan Biskupic, "Some Potential Nominees for the Supreme Court," USA Today, September 29, 2004. See article at: usatoday.com. James Vicini, "Next President Could Get to Reshape High Court," Reuters, October 1, 2004. See article at: olympics.reuters.com. Mary Deibel, "Future of Supreme Court Likely at Stake in Election," Scripps Howard News Service, September 30, 2004. See article at: knoxstudio.com. Ralph Neas, "The Future of the Supreme Court as an Issue in the Presidential Election," People For the American Way, September 30, 2004. See article at: pfaw.org. "Next President May Pick Supreme Court Justice," The Associated Press, September 27, 2004. See article at: cnn.com.)

posted by Schna @ 10:50 AM