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Quote from Mitt Romney Sums up Many Conservatives' Views

I was looking over at Nationalreview.com's supreme Court blog (link is now on the right side) and found a good quote from Massachusett's Governor Mitt Romney when asked about the nomination of Harriet Miers:


"Well, I totally agree with Judge Bork's comments that I heard on the air. And that is, what has happened to the court is it has become a legislative body. It has decided when it determines we should have a major shift in law in this country, that it is going to carry out that shift without either a vote of the people or a vote of Congress. That is unconstitutional it's contrary to the vision of the founding fathers and it's contrary to the preservation of the democracy upon which this nation was built. As that as happened it's led to the level of contention we have had and a demand on the part of those who care deeply about our country and its Constitution to look for people of very strong conservative credentials and individuals who have the intellectual underpinnings to sway the court in the direction of conservative thought and in terms of restraint. With regards to the Miers nomination, I think a lot of people, myself included, are disappointed in many respects, not despondent of course, but disappointed. She's a very capable and purposeful individual. But obviously our highest hope had been for someone who had the credentials and track record that would suggest an ability to move the court's opinion in an intellectual direction over a number of decades."



More and more it appears that Governor Romney's opinon seems to be the one being held by more and more conservatives around the country. They want a shift in the way the Supreme Court has been carrying itself. I believe many conservatives have not been satisfied with the direction the court has gone in since FDR's attempt to pack the courts. Prior to that the court was a strict constructionalist court. It rendered many of FDR's plans for economic recovery unconstitutional because in many ways they were. They may have been to the benefit of the country as a whole but that is not the job of the Supreme Court, they are not to determine what is best for the country, they are merely to decide whether a law is constitutional or unconstitutional. This is how Chief Justice John Marshall intended it to be when he originally established the idea of judicial review. Marshall asserted that the founding fathers intended for the constitution to be the supreme law of the land, as we all recognize today. Therefore Marshall said if the constitution is the supreme law of the land then any law passed by Congress or any legislative body that is contridictory to the constitution is void. Here is how Marshall said it himself:

"If an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void, does it, notwithstanding its invalidity, bind the courts, and oblige them to give it effect? Or, in other words, though it be not law, does it constitute a rule as operative as if it was a law? This would be to overthrow in fact what was established in theory; and would seem, at first view, an absurdity too gross to be insisted on. It shall, however, receive a more attentive consideration.
It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each.
So if a law be in opposition to the constitution; if both the law and the constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the constitution; or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law; the court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty."

This what many conservatives want a return to, this doctrine, this principle. While many found John Roberts to be more than adequate in satisfying their need for this many people now find Harriet Miers to be too much of an unknown. So much about her is a question mark in people's heads. If Miers does not drop out then Bush is in for a fierce nomination battle against many in his own party.

The Man in The Black Robes.



This post first appeared on Behind The Bench, please read the originial post: here

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Quote from Mitt Romney Sums up Many Conservatives' Views

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