Thomas as Outlier; Mitt a Windsock?

28 October 2011 |permalink | email article

Justice Clarence Thomas, as the New York Times observed, was sworn in to the Supreme Court 20 years ago this week. He remains a legal outlier even on the conservative court. The results he reaches are often radical: Thomas, for example, “favors cutting back the authority of the federal government and letting states decide for themselves how to safeguard the health and welfare of their citizens.” 

Extreme as many of his views are, the most extreme part of Justices Thomas’ record is not what he decides, but how. Justice Antonin Scalia told a biographer of Justice Thomas that Justice Thomas “doesn’t believe in stare decisis, period.” Even to conservatives like Justice Scalia – an orginalist, claiming to interpret the Constitution as the framers understood it – stare decisis, or following legal precedents, is integral to Supreme Court law. But that is not the Thomas approach. He has argued that ‘the ultimate precedent is the Constitution.”

Aside from Justice Thomas Republican presidential candidates are issuing biting attacks on the federal courts and the role they play in American life, ramping up conservative criticism about the judiciary. Rick Perry, for example, favors term limits for Supreme Court justices; Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul would forbid the court from deciding cases concerning same-sex marriages; and both Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum want to abolish the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, calling it a “rogue” court that is “consistently radical.” The disregard by Justice Thomas of essential principles plays into conservative cynicism about how Supreme Court law is made.

L.A. Notebook

The rapid consolidation of the once competitive Los Angeles News Group – The Daily News, South Bay Daily Breeze and Long Beach Press-Telegram – is accelerating at flank speed about big staff reductions. My expectation is these venerable newspapers could soon become zone sections of the once nationally influential but now shrunken Los Angeles Times, and loss of a legion of great journalists. 

Quotable

“So fight on, Mr. President. You’re renewing your voice and your vision, and America is beginning to hear you again as it did in 2008. Don’t forget how FDR fought back in 1936 against the “forces of greed and privilege.” – Veteran Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, in The Week, with a progressive message while eschewing demands for a more centrist campaign by some less bold operatives.

“I don’t even know if there’s a hurdle left, but yes this man is a windsock. I mean, anytime that you turn around, it’s something else. Once he uses any kind of adjective in front of it, you know he’s getting ready to flip-flop. – James Carville on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” suggesting Mitt Romney, despite flip-flops, will probably win the GOP nomination, Rick Perry should “get out of the race” and Herman Cain is a “national distraction.” 

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