A debate on constitutionalism is the absolute key to objections about the Miers nomination.
Even if she IS a strong conservative, we will not get the national debate over constitutionalist judges that we want.
If this nomination is made in fear of a fight over someone stronger or more obvious, then it has been made wrongly. The desire for constitutionalist judges is greater now than before. There is no reason to shrink or compromise or sneak through a stealth candidate. We should nominate Luttig or McConnell and build a little national interest.
Question: will the GOP run stronger after waging a tough battle to nominate a top-drawer judicial conservative or after sending up someone Dusty Harry likes? I think we all know the answer.
The Republican party cannot hurt itself by pushing judicial conservatives or by forcing Democrats to attack them. If moving the base is the key, Bush and Co. have made a bad, bad move.
I'm not drawing the same conclusions that you are on this one, T. Big surprise. I think you take originalism to a bizarre literalism.
ReplyDeleteI think he's pretty much right, except for the thing about the second amendment.
ReplyDeleteNo he's not. We had Marines back when the people who wrote the Constitution were still in charge. Corporate law is almost entirely state law, not federal. UN resolutions? He's got some bizarre interpretation of the treaty clause that no one else has ever heard of, I suppose. As far as I understand it (which ain't far, I admit) originalists take a *more* restrictive view of how international agreements are to be negotiated.
Here's the one big change we were hoping for with originalism: a return to a sane federalism, and the continutation of the development of a restrictive view of the Commerce Clause. I don't want to speak for my fellow RCers, but I am not in favor of conservative judges legislating *my* policy preferences from the bench. I am in favor of giving power back to the state legislatures from which it's been stolen for the past 75 years.