Culture Clips-May
11, 2005
Four Year
Injustice
Four years
ago today, President George W. Bush nominated Priscilla Owen
to serve on the federal court of appeals. Justice Owen is
an extraordinary Texan, an exceptional jurist, and a devoted
public servant. Yet, after four years, she is still
waiting for an up-or-down vote in the United States Senate.
What's more, a partisan minority of senators now demands —
for the first time in history — that she must be supported
by a supermajority of 60 senators, rather than the constitutional
rule and Senate tradition of majority vote. After four years,
it is long past time to restore sanity and Senate tradition
to our judicial confirmation process.
I know Priscilla personally, because we served together on
the Texas supreme court. Throughout her life, she has excelled
in virtually everything she has ever done. She was a law-review
editor, a top graduate from Baylor Law School at the remarkable
age of 23, and the top scorer on the Texas bar exam. She entered
the legal profession at a time when relatively few women did,
and after a distinguished record in private practice, she
reached the pinnacle of the Texas bar — a seat on the Texas
supreme court. She was supported by a larger percentage of
Texans than any of her colleagues during her last election,
after enjoying the endorsement of every major Texas newspaper.
Unsurprisingly, then, the American Bar Association, after
careful study, unanimously rated her well qualified to serve
on the federal bench — their highest rating.
Unsurprisingly, she enjoys the enthusiastic support of a bipartisan
majority of senators.
Yet a partisan minority of senators now insists that Owen
may not be confirmed without the support of a supermajority
of 60 senators — a demand that is, by their own admission,
wholly unprecedented in Senate history. Why? Simple: The case
for opposing her is so weak that changing the rules is the
only way they can defeat her nomination.
What's more, they know it, too. Before her nomination became
caught up in partisan special-interest politics, the top Democrat
on the Judiciary Committee predicted that Owen would be swiftly
confirmed. On the day of the announcement of the first group
of nominees, including Owen, he said he was "encouraged"
and that "I know them well enough that I would assume
they'll go through all right." Indeed, just a few weeks
ago, the Minority Leader announced that Senate Democrats would
give Justice Owen an up-or-down vote — albeit only if Republicans
agreed to deny the same courtesy to other nominees.
These concessions are understandable, because the case against
Owen is unconvincing. For example, Owen is accused of ruling
against injured workers, employment discrimination plaintiffs,
and other sympathetic parties on a variety of occasions. Never
mind, however, that good judges like Justice Owen do their
best to follow the law, regardless of which party will win
and which will lose. Never mind that many of her criticized
rulings were unanimous or near-unanimous decisions of the
Texas Supreme Court. Never mind that many of these rulings
simply followed federal precedents authored and agreed to
even by appointees of Presidents Clinton and Carter, or by
other federal judges unanimously confirmed by the United States
Senate. Never mind that judges often disagree — especially
when a law is ambiguous and requires careful and difficult
interpretation.
Justice Owen is also criticized for enforcing a popular Texas
law generally requiring parental notification before a minor
can obtain an abortion. Her opponents allege that, in one
parental-notification case, then-Justice Alberto Gonzales
accused her of "judicial activism."
This charge is unpersuasive for at least two reasons. First,
judges disagree all the time — that's why we have multi-member
courts. U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens once
accused Justice Byron White of "judicial activism,"
while in another opinion he accused Justice Lewis Powell and
Sandra Day O'Connor of "judicial activism."
But second, and more importantly, Gonzales did not accuse
Owen of judicial activism. Not once did he say that "Justice
Owen is guilty of judicial activism." To the contrary,
Gonzales never even mentioned her ruling. And he has since
testified under oath that he never accused Owen of any such
thing. What's more, the author of the parental notification
law supports Owen — as does the pro-choice Democrat law professor
who was appointed to the Texas supreme court's Advisory Committee
to implement that law. In her words, Owen simply "did
what good appellate judges do every day. . . . If this is
activism, then any judicial interpretation of a statute's
terms is judicial activism."
The American people know a controversial ruling when they
see one — whether it's the redefinition of marriage, or the
expulsion of the Pledge of Allegiance and other expressions
of faith from the public square — whether it's the elimination
of the three-strikes-and-you're out law and other penalties
against convicted criminals, or the forced removal of military
recruiters from college campuses. Owen's rulings fall nowhere
near this category of cases. There is a world of difference
between struggling to interpret the ambiguous expressions
of a legislature, and refusing to obey a legislature's directives
altogether.
The Senate judicial confirmation process has been at times
emotional and politically divisive, and that is unfortunate.
But all Americans of good faith should at least agree that
we need a fair process for selecting judges — with full investigation,
full questioning, full debate, and then an up-or-down vote.
And all Americans should agree that, although nobody likes
to lose, the rules should always be the same, regardless of
whether the president is Republican or Democrat. Throughout
our nation's more than 200-year history, the constitutional
rule and Senate tradition for confirming judges has been majority
vote. senators should uphold and restore that tradition —
and giving Owen an up-or-down vote, after four years of delay,
would be an excellent start.
Senator
John Cornyn
National
Review
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/cornyn200505090747.asp
--
The
Right of Rights: Little Girls and Abortion
In the past
two weeks, two events taking place 857 miles apart show just
how absurd our ideas about “freedom” have become.
One of the
events involved a 13-year-old girl known only as “L. G.” “L.
G.” has been in the custody of Florida’s Department of Children
& Families (DCF) since she was nine. In late January,
“L. G.” ran away from the DCF shelter and, during her absence,
became pregnant.
After her
return, her caseworker arranged for an abortion. On the day
the abortion was scheduled, DCF requested a court order delaying
the abortion. DCF argued that it has the “custodial responsibility
to do what is in the best interest of the child.”
At the hearing,
“L. G.,” who was represented by the Florida ACLU, justified
her decision by saying that “it would make no sense to have
the baby.” She asked the judge, “Why can’t I make my own decision?”—13-year-old
girl.
The judge
delayed the abortion long enough for “L. G.” to be examined
psychologically. When, as expected, she passed the exam, he
ruled that she could have an abortion. Florida officials
announced that they would “respectfully comply with the court’s
decision.”
The truth
is that they didn’t have any choice. A 2003 Florida Supreme
Court ruling struck down a state law requiring parental notification
in the case of a minor seeking an abortion. If parents don’t
have the right to be notified, what good does it to require
parental consent?
At the same
time this was going on, the House of Representatives debated
a law that makes it “illegal to dodge parental-consent laws
by taking minors across state lines for abortions.” As the
law now stands, an unrelated adult who takes a 13-year-old
from, say, Pennsylvania to New Jersey to have an
abortion without her parent’s knowledge hasn’t violated any
law. Well, the majority in Congress is trying to change this.
But, predictably,
an ACLU spokesman said that the bill “reflects a lack of compassion
toward teens.” Just as predictably, “abortion-rights” advocates
tried to tack on exceptions that would have swallowed the
rule.
What’s missing
in all of this talk about “decisions” and “compassion” is
any appreciation of the absurdity that underlies the abortion
debate. In any other context, the idea that a 13-year-old
has a constitutional right to choose against her parents’
wishes an invasive surgical procedure, or even consent to
one, would be absurd. Schools need parental permission to
dispense over-the-counter medications. And a 13-year-old can’t
get her ears pierced without mom or dad being present.
Chuck Colson
Townhall
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/chuckcolson/cc20050509.shtml
--
U.N. Human
Rights and Wrongs
President
Bush couldn't be more right that the United Nations needs
reform. The best proof of the need for U.N. reform is the
U.N. Commission on Human Rights.
There are 53 commission members. How can you take the U.N.
seriously when six human-rights commission members are among
the most repressive regimes in the world? These six regimes,
according to a Freedom House survey, include: China, Cuba,
Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Zimbabwe.
Instead of harrying U.S. ambassador-designate John Bolton
Congress should harry the United Nations for allowing such
scandalous behavior. How can China, or Cuba, yes Cuba,
be allowed membership on a U.N. commission responsible for
monitoring and condemning human-rights violations? Why aren't
there congressional hearings about such immoral, duplicitous
behavior at the United Nations?
The
first question such a White House conference should ask is:
How did China, Cuba, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Zimbabwe
become members of a body called the United Nations Commission
on Human Rights?
It's bad enough to have these regimes in the U.N., exercising
voting privileges they would not dare allow their own peoples
-- but have them sitting on the Commission on Human Rights?
This is only one of the many macabre jokes about the United
Nations: allowing felons to sit in judgment on themselves.
"Repressive governments enjoying CHR membership work
in concert," said Freedom House in its recently published
survey, "and have successfully subverted the commission's
mandate. Rather than serving as the proper international forum
for identifying and publicly censuring the world's most egregious
human rights violators, the CHR instead protects abusers,
enabling them to sit in judgment of democratic states that
honor and respect the rule of law."
Arnold
Beichman
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/
