The Quiet Conservative July 4, 2007
The True Balance of the Supreme Court
Recently the mainstream media has portrayed the US Supreme Court as shifting to the right. Report
after report has the court giving victories to “Conservatives”. On July 1st NBC Nightly News did a
segment on this with view and reported that the major court decisions are partisan split decisions.
The Media Research Center’s website (mrc.org) provided the transcript of the report. The major
thrust of this and the other reports in the press is that the “Right Wing” has taken over the courts and
now the legal system is held hostage by agenda driven jurists. All the reports cast the Court in a
‘Conservative’ vs. ‘Liberal’ slant. All the reports are wrong.
This is not a conservative takeover of the Supreme Court. It is a return of the Supreme Court to its
proper function. That return has a slim majority of five over four in most of the major cases. Could
you name all nine justices? Allow me to name them for you. The Chief Justice is Justice Roberts.
Then there is John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence
Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Bryer, and Samuel Alito. The marked “Conservatives” are
Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito. Kennedy is seen more and more as a “Conservative”. Then
there is Ginsburg, Bryer, and Souter. They are rarely labeled “Liberal”. To the press “Liberal” is
normal and “Conservative” is the aberration.
Above it's mentioned that the labels are wrong. But the press has us putting these tags on the
Justices and soon we think that way. Instead, to be accurate, we have four Justices that believe the
role of a Supreme Court Judge is to hear the case and apply the law as it is written in respect to the
Constitution. We have three Justices that believe the Constitution is a “living document” that means
whatever they say it means. We have one Justice, Kennedy, which used to be squishy either way
and is now more and more applying the law as it was intended. When these “Conservative” Justices
first began to be appointed the media tried to disparage them by calling them “strict
constructionists”. It meant they applied the standards of the Constitution as it was meant to be- as
the oaths they took when they were sworn in requires them to be. That generated no outrage at all it
was what they were supposed to be doing. So recently they began tagging them as “Conservative”.
It has been much more effective.
Meanwhile, the liberal justices were making great strides with doing away with the Constitution all
together. Just a year ago Ginsburg, Breyer, and now retired Justice O’Connor were in a mild flap
when they gave speeches where they stated they were citing foreign law in their decisions. Their
reasoning is that international and foreign law added a perspective to US Constitutional questions.
They thought it perfectly proper to use these sources in arriving at their decisions. The Constitution,
then, became only one source by which they could base their decisions. No longer were they bound
by their oath and by the document. They had become the liberal dream, unelected legislators able to
impose their view by fiat. The Conservative alternative print and talk radio media caught them out
and the driving push for grassroots Conservatives became the need to elect judges that would uphold
the law, not create it. It was this distinction, one side wanting judges that applied the law and one
side, liberals, which wanted judges to create the laws, that has silhouetted the stark difference
between the two ideologies.
The mainstream media holds you in contempt. They know you are leading busy lives and so rely
on them to find the news and relay it to you accurately. They know that you will not check their
facts. But I am afraid the news is so unreliable, fact checking is exactly what you should do. If you
read the press accounts you will find a slanted unreliable take on a vital branch of the Government
and the cases they hear. So go to the primary source. The web site for the US Supreme Court is
www.supremecourtus.gov. You can read the oral arguments or read the slip opinions themselves.
When you hear of a major court decision in the news, look them up on the web and read them. You
will find by reading these opinions that one of the greatest Justices is Justice Thomas. It may be why
he is hated by the press. Judge Scalia is also a great read. But soon you will find a common thread.
There are Justices that apply the law, cite the law, and respect the Constitution, and there are Justices
that cite precedent, emotion, and desired goals.
Which side then, is the most reliable? Start with Kelo v. New London, June 23, 2005. In this
decision Justices Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Breyer and Ginsburg decided you don’t own your
home. Kudos should go to Justice O’Connor that wrote the main dissent opinion. Private property
belonged to the one who could bring in the most tax dollars to the community. They decided if the
state could find someone who could bring in more tax dollars than you on the same land, then the
state had a compelling interest to take your home and give it to that other private company or
person. This wasn't taking your home so a road or power line could go through. This was taking
your home so a guy in a fancier car could build a bigger house. In this one decision they wiped out
the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution and your right to own your own home.
So, it isn't “Conservative” v. “Liberal”. It is Justices that obey their oaths of office and respect the
Constitution and….Liberals.