Don's Tuesday Column

            THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   2/23/2016

Why the hubbub over judges?

A fair amount of opining has shown up, on these pages and elsewhere, over the contentious issue of replacing deceased Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. I should neither surprise nor shock readers that I would encourage every tactic and tool available to Senate Republicans to assure that 1) this President has no nominee confirmed; and 2) the next President, hopefully a Republican, has the prerogative to nominate an appropriate, qualified individual who closely reflects Scalia’s judicial philosophy.

That ideological orientation is, after all, the key to retaining the conservative majority on the court which, even at a 5 to 4 advantage, is still out of step with a solidly center/right electorate. That’s based on polling positions on abortion, gun rights, private property superiority, and the preference for the free market and private enterprise over big government. Anyone quibbling with that has only to set aside their biases—and pollsters’ manipulative questions and “push polling”—to confirm the massive swing in state legislatures toward Republican control during the last seven years.

Then you have this curious fact that the voters put Republicans in charge of first, the House of Representatives, then the U.S. Senate, in unequivocal elections sending disapproving messages to Emperor Obama and his Democrat followers. That refutes those wanting Obama to simply wave aside the role of the Senate and have his choice approved and acclaimed simply because he was elected twice. Most voters want him stopped.

Mr. Stan Statham’s comments were thoughtful and reflected his estimable experiences, and salutary record, as a long-and-faithful-serving Republican Assemblyman and news anchor. Setting aside his fair-minded reflections on the advantages of personal camaraderie and mutual, respectful consensus, he somewhat answered his own concerns over “right wing conservatives going ‘berserkly’ at the prospect of Barack Hussein Obama having this appointment opportunity.” The answer resided among the issues he listed, “since this ultimate court can really change America and even our cultural norms on issues like gun control, homosexuality, the death penalty, immigration (and) those Executive Orders that all of our Presidents use to varying degrees when they can’t get Congress to cooperate.”

I don’t believe the Supreme Court, the coequal—not superior—branch of government beside the legislative and the executive, was meant by any stretch of the Constitution to “change America and our cultural norms.” The changes that the Framers anticipated were intended to reside in, and emanate from, the local and state electorate and find expression in the national elected bodies established to represent the voters in Washington.

I just reread Article III: “Section 1. The judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” Section 2 describes the extent of judicial power therein created; I think the average American would be perplexed over how issues listed there could have possibly morphed into “changing America and our cultural norms” on issues mentioned by Mr. Statham (who was only stating the obvious, current state of judicial affairs).

It is that reality that prompts each partisan side to inveigh mightily against nominees that don’t reflect their party’s ideological leanings. Were courts and judges marginally involved with laws written by the people’s representatives; were those laws the final word of instruction to the executive branch (not suggestions for the vast regulatory arm of the executive to write millions of words with the effect of law); and were all of that restricted to the original meaning enshrined in our Founding documents—were those our current norms, Americans wouldn’t be anxious over what to expect next week, month, year and beyond because legislatures, not judges, would make necessary changes.

The laws would not reflect political parties’ beliefs except as they were formed over time into legislation. However, “right-wing conservatives” are only a small slice of the citizenry that are at best uneasy, and at worst viscerally angry and afraid that (to reflect Stan’s listed issues): 1) Obama judges will reverse the decisions that we, in fact, have a personal right to arm and protect ourselves if local security and law enforcement is insufficient for our families’ safety;

2) Obama judges will blithely mandate that religious liberty take a back seat, even suffering monetary and prison punishments, when the cultural left makes homosexual marriage a universal institution and allows none to forbear or disapprove;

3) Obama judges will set in motion legal frameworks that return killers to our streets and communities, regardless of the common sense wisdom of the majority that wants heinous murderers put to death; and 4) Obama judges will overrule and negate the laws of America making the illegal crossing of our borders—or other means of breaking our immigration laws—a nuisance we must tolerate, an economic burden we must bear, a linguistic hurdle we are powerless to address, and an anti-American cultural travesty we are cowed into accepting.

I also believe that, before Obama’s terms, Presidents avoided using Executive Orders to negate laws, ignore laws, violate clearly stated “recess appointment” protocol, and unilaterally impose made-up regulations on sovereign states.

           Next week, I’ll explain the fallacies bandied about over the Senate’s role in the process.