NEEDED: STORIES ON SUPREME COURT APPOINTMENTS
by Leo E. Laurence, J.D.; Member: Nat'l. Committee on Diversity
In the daily grind of stories from the campaign trails of our presumptive, presidential nominees; we are seeing far too few articles - and speeches by the campaigners - on the major importance of Supreme Court appointments that the next president will likely make - which could change the course of American jurisprudence for generations to come.
Time magazine and the Washington Post are rare exceptions.
"(The Supreme Court) is sharply divided ideologically on some of the most fundimental, constitutional questions; and the upcoming presidential election will determine its future path," wrote Robert Burns in the Washington Post.
"A victory by the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barrack Obama, would probably mean preserving the uneasy - but roughly balanced - status quo, since the justices who are considered most likely to retire are liberal.
"A win for his Republican counterpart, John McCain, could mean a fundimental shift to a conservative majority ready to take on past court rulings on abortion rights, affirmatrive action and other issues of importance to the right," Burns wrote.
In its most recent term, the high court has bounced back and forth between the left and the right on the constitutional rights of terrorist suspects, individual gun ownershiip and the increaingly narrow view of who is eligible for the death penalty.
Each case has pitted the four consistently conservative justices against the four slightly-less consistent liberals, with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy returning to his role of last term as the deciding vote.
"The blockbuster cases, the really big cases, have now brought into very sharp focus how closely divided this court is on the really large and philosophically-charged issues before the court," says Charles J. Cooper, a Washington lawyer quoted by Burns.
"It has cast 'the sharpest possible focus on how important the court is going to be . . . in the upcoming election debate,'" Cooper added.
The average age of the court's liberals will be 75 when it opens its next term in October.
An Obama victory will surely replace one of those liberals with another liberal. But, a McCain win will give the high court a solid, majority block (of conservatives) for years to come.
Chief Justice John Roberts has made a determined effort to have the other justices draft narrow rulings, creating the stronger possibility that there will be a greater consensus and avoid the 5-4 splits. Also, more non-controversial business cases have been acceptd by the Robert's court.
Roberts has done well. Of the 15 cases in which the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has filed briefs, 80% were deciced by a 7-2 or higher split, and a third were unanimous. Roberts was in the majority in 90% of all the cases this term, more frequently than any other justice.
But, "regardless of Robert's consensus building, the future of the court will be determined by the (upcoming) presidential election," Time magazine reported in its issue dated July 14th.
"If McCain wins and gets to replace one of two liberal justices with reliable conservatives, there will be a lopsided, conservative majority and Roberts will have little incentive to win over the marginalized liberal justices who remain.
"By contrast, if Obama wins, the ideologial makeup of the court will remain the same in the foreseeable future - four liberal justices and four conservatives, with Kennedy in the middle," Time says.
"In that case, Robert's success in promoting bipartisn unity may make the difference between a Supreme Court that declares war on Obamam's domestic agenda . . . and a court that is content to get out of the way of a Democratic president and Congress," Time concludes.
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Leo E. Laurence, J.D. belongs to that small "club" of journalists nationwide who holds a law degree, which included the late Tim Russert. Contact Laurence at leopowerhere@msn.com or call (619) 757-4909.