Let’s rethink the concept of “lifetime appointments”

June 25th, 2007

We’ve got a problem — and plenty of motivation to go Blue in ‘08, keep this from getting worse. We have ended up with a Supremely provincial [and visibly Catholic] High Court, studiously conservative and tight-minded.

I’d be fine with a lifetime appointment for the High Court if you could find me a Caesar’s Wife or a Solomon to sit on it — instead we got Alito and Roberts to go with Scalia, who recently used Jack Bauer [TV show 24] to illustrate “extraordinary measures” to protect the world, and the UberReligious Clarence Thomas, leaving us only moderate-right Justice Kennedy, who suffers, too often, the ‘birds of a feather’ syndrome to be a decent swing vote.

Sigh.

Jude

In Second Term, Roberts Court Defines Itself
Robert Barnes, The Washington Post
Jun 25, 2007

In the final days of the Supreme Court’s term, the stage is set for the divisions that narrowly but decisively split the justices on social issues to be on full display.

The court has already decided more cases on 5 to 4 votes this term than in all of last term — some of them favoring the court’s liberal wing, more won by the conservatives. This week, the opportunity is there for the court reconstituted under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to make a bold statement.

The cases remaining concern some of the most divisive of social and policy questions: the use of race in public school admission programs; the constitutionality of advertising restrictions in the McCain-Feingold campaign finance act; whether ordinary taxpayers have the right to sue over what they perceive to be violations of the separation of church and state. ++

Supreme Court hands victory to Bush on faith-based initiatives
Michael Roston, Raw Story
Monday June 25, 2007

On a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that a group of taxpayers did not have standing to sue the US government for its funding of faith-based initiatives with federal money. The decision, Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, was written by Samuel Alito, the second Supreme Court Justice appointed by President George W. Bush, according to the website SCOTUSBlog.

The group People for the American Way slammed the decision as threatening the First Amendment.

“It’s a bad day for the First Amendment. The Supreme Court just put a big dent in the wall of separation between church and state, and a big smile on Pat Robertson’s face,” said Ralph Ness, the group’s president, in a statement. “Today’s ruling will make it more difficult for citizens whose tax dollars are being unlawfully spent to subsidize religion to bring a complaint in court. It is also consistent with a broader strategy by right-wing judges and activists to restrict standing for average Americans to challenge powerful government and business interests.”

But in Alito’s decision, the Justice was dismissive of the worries of the plaintiffs in the case.

“None of the parade of horribles respondents claim could occur…has happened,” the Court’s newest Justice wrote. “In the unlikely event any do take place, Congress can quickly step in.”

In a second 5-4 ruling, the Court ruled that schools could censor student expression outside of school grounds. The case was prompted by Juneau, Alaska, students who were punished after they held up a ‘Bong Hits 4 Jesus’ poster while attending a field trip to see the running of the Olympic Torch, according to CNN. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the decision.

In a third 5-4 ruling, the Court decided that a Wisconsin-based anti-abortion group should have been allowed to run so-called ‘issue ads’ in the two months leading up to the 2004 Election. The decision opens the way for interest groups, business, and union to make a greater effort to sway federal elections. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the opinion in the case. ++

Court Limits Student Free-Speech Rights
MARK SHERMAN, Huff Wire
June 25, 2007

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court tightened limits on student speech Monday, ruling against a high school student and his 14-foot-long “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” banner.

Schools may prohibit student expression that can be interpreted as advocating drug use, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court in a 5-4 ruling.

Joseph Frederick unfurled his homemade sign on a winter morning in 2002, as the Olympic torch made its way through Juneau, Alaska, en route to the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Frederick said the banner was a nonsensical message that he first saw on a snowboard. He intended the banner to proclaim his right to say anything at all.

His principal, Deborah Morse, said the phrase was a pro-drug message that had no place at a school-sanctioned event. Frederick denied that he was advocating for drug use.

“The message on Frederick’s banner is cryptic,” Roberts said. “But Principal Morse thought the banner would be interpreted by those viewing it as promoting illegal drug use, and that interpretation is plainly a reasonable one.”

Morse suspended the student, prompting a federal civil rights lawsuit.

The winning side in the case was quick to assert that the decision was not anti-free speech.

In their concurrence, Justices Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy specified that the court’s opinion provides no support for any restriction on speech that goes to political or social issues.

It’s a narrow ruling that “should not be read more broadly,” said Kenneth Starr, whose law firm represented the school principal.

Students in public schools don’t have the same rights as adults, but neither do they leave their constitutional protections at the schoolhouse gate, as the court said in a landmark speech-rights ruling from Vietnam era.

The court has limited what students can do in subsequent cases, saying they may not be disruptive or lewd or interfere with a school’s basic educational mission.

Frederick, now 23, said he later had to drop out of college after his father lost his job. The elder Frederick, who worked for the company that insures the Juneau schools, was fired in connection with his son’s legal fight, the son said. A jury recently awarded Frank Frederick $200,000 in a lawsuit he filed over his firing.

Joseph Frederick, who has been teaching and studying in China, pleaded guilty in 2004 to a misdemeanor charge of selling marijuana at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, according to court records.

Conservative groups that often are allied with the administration are backing Frederick out of concern that a ruling for Morse would let schools clamp down on religious expression, including speech that might oppose homosexuality or abortion.

The case is Morse v. Frederick, 06-278. ++

Justices Loosens Limits on Campaign Ads
MARK SHERMAN, Huff Wire
June 25, 2007

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court loosened political advertising restrictions aimed at corporate- and union-funded television ads Monday, weakening a key provision of a landmark campaign finance law.

The court’s 5-4 ruling could become a significant factor in the upcoming presidential primaries, giving interest groups a louder and more influential voice in the closing days before those contests as well as the general election.

The decision upheld an appeals court ruling that an anti-abortion group should have been allowed to air ads during the final two months before the 2004 elections. The law unreasonably limits speech and violates the group’s First Amendment rights, the court said.
“Discussion of issues cannot be suppressed simply because the issues may also be pertinent in an election,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. “Where the First Amendment is implicated, the tie goes to the speaker, not the censor.”

The case involved advertisements that Wisconsin Right to Life was prevented from broadcasting. The ads asked voters to contact the state’s two senators, Democrats Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, and urge them not to filibuster President Bush’s judicial nominees.
Feingold, a co-author of the campaign finance law, was up for re-election in 2004.

The provision in question was aimed at preventing the airing of issue ads that cast candidates in positive or negative lights while stopping short of explicitly calling for their election or defeat. Sponsors of such ads have contended they are exempt from certain limits on contributions in federal elections.

A first test of the impact of the court’s opinion could come as early as December, a month before presidential caucuses and primaries in Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

“The ruling could have important implications for the 2008 presidential election and could reorder the advertising strategies of corporate America and labor unions over the next two years,” said Michael Toner, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, which oversees campaign finance law.

The decision is a setback for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who helped write the 2002 campaign finance legislation with Feingold that contained the advertising provision. McCain, now a presidential candidate, has come under criticism from conservatives for attempting to restrict political money and political advertising.

“It is regrettable that a split Supreme Court has carved out a narrow exception by which some corporate and labor expenditures can be used to target a federal candidate in the days and weeks before an election,” McCain said in a statement.

The court’s decision, however, has no effect on the more far-reaching component of the campaign finance law _ it’s ban on the ability of political parties to raise unlimited and unrestricted amounts of money from unions, corporations and wealthy donors.

“Fortunately,” McCain said, “that central reform still stands as the law.”

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who has been critical of McCain’s stance, promptly hailed the court’s decision.

“McCain-Feingold was a poorly-crafted bill,” Romney said in a statement. “Today’s decision restores, in part, to the American people a right critical to their freedom of political participation and expression.”

Three justices, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, would have overruled the court’s 2003 decision upholding the constitutionality of the provision.

Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito said only that the Wisconsin group’s ads are not the equivalent of explicit campaign ads and are not covered by the court’s 2003 decision.
That means the FEC will likely have to step in and write specific rules about such advertising that reflect the court’s opinion.

Justice David Souter, joined by his three liberal colleagues, said in his dissent that the court “effectively and, unjustifiably, overruled” the earlier decision.

The ads could have been run, Souter pointed out, had they been paid for out of the group’s political action committee, which is subject to federal campaign finance limits. Or Feingold’s name could have been omitted, he said.

“Thus, what is called a ‘ban’ on speech is a limit on the financing of electioneering broadcasts by entities … that insist on acting as conduits from the campaign war chests of business corporations,” Souter said.

Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens joined Souter’s dissent.

The Bush administration urged the court to ban the ads, arguing that they were meant to influence the elections, not lobby the senators.

An array of interest groups across the political spectrum sought the outcome the court reached Monday. They include: the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Rifle Association, labor unions and business groups.

The consolidated case is Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, 06-969, and McCain v. Wisconsin Right to Life, 06-970. ++

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

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Entry Filed under: Political Waves