'Justice, and Only Justice'



'Justice, and Only Justice'

Senate Democrats intend to block judicial nominees who uphold the sanctity of human life. How long will we let them get away with it?

By Jay Sekulow

Whenever religious expression is censored in schools, the workplace or the public arena, we turn to the federal courts for justice. The same is true in the legal fight to outlaw partial-birth abortion or to protect pro-life speech.

While the Supreme Court ultimately has the final word on the “law of the land,” lower courts weave the tapestry of law upon which the high court bases its decisions.

After all, the Supreme Court accepts only a tiny fraction of the thousands of cases it is asked to consider each year. All legal battles begin in the lower courts; very few make it to the top.

Liberal groups understand the power of federal district and appeals courts; that’s why they work so hard to defeat President Bush’s nominees. It explains the smear campaign against Charles Pickering, a nominee to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Goaded by abortion lobbyists and liberal activists, the 10 Democrats of the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected him in March.

“It was unfortunate for democracy and unfortunate for America,” Bush said at the time. But the truth is the tactics used to thwart the nomination marked the beginning of what may be a prolonged partisan political battle over the nation’s judiciary.

Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who experienced firsthand the politics of personal destruction during her husband’s confirmation battle, spelled out the nature of the fight in a letter to Judge Pickering in The Wall Street Journal:

“You are but a pawn in a much larger battle over whether an independent judiciary will prevail or whether a liberal judicial litmus test will transform our courts into another political branch with a liberal activist bent.”

Senate Hypocrisy

The idea of an independent judiciary goes back to biblical days. In the Old Testament, the book of Deuteronomy made it clear there is to be only one focus for a judge: “Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue (Deuteronomy 16: 20, NASB).”

When America was formed, our Founding Fathers understood the importance of the judicial branch of government. The Constitution is clear — the president has the right and responsibility to nominate qualified judges. And the Constitution calls for the “advice and consent” of the Senate — not just the Judiciary Committee — in considering judicial nominees.

Even some typically liberal media pundits thought the Senate committee acted inappropriately. Columnist David Broder of The Washington Post was correct when he wrote that the Constitution “does not empower any 10 members of one party to veto the choice of a president of the other party. If those senators are really convinced of the need to reject the president’s choice, they ought to have confidence they can persuade a majority of the other 90 senators they are right.”

Not long ago, Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., would have agreed with that view. In 1997, when Republicans controlled the Senate and Bill Clinton was in the White House, Biden said it wasn’t appropriate to prevent nominees from going to the floor for a vote and that it was inappropriate for senators to “tell the president who he must nominate.” But on the Pickering vote he refused to follow his own advice.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., an outspoken member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, warned the president that Democrats would continue to oppose Bush’s conservative nominees. “There’s clearly no mandate from the American people to stack the courts with conservative ideologues,” Schumer said. “So if the White House persists in sending us nominees who threaten to throw the courts out of whack with the country, we have no choice but to vote ‘no.’ ”

Why have Biden and Schumer and other Judiciary Democrats taken such a radical stand? Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the committee’s ranking minority member, said liberal special interest groups are seeking an “ideological litmus test” to screen out judges who do not agree with them on issues such as abortion.

You can be certain there will be much attention paid to future judicial nominees to determine their position on the issue of life. And, don’t be surprised when liberals use the “pro-life” label to target a nominee for defeat.

People for the American Way, the liberal lobby that led the charge to defeat Judge Pickering, said the Judiciary Committee should continue to reject nominees “who pose a threat” to the abortion industry. And the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League said it “will continue to closely monitor the records of all nominees and will continue to oppose those whose views threaten the right to choose.”

High Stakes

The Pickering nomination was only a sampling of the confirmation battles yet to come. The debate and controversy surrounding nominees for the lower courts will pale in comparison to the attention and focused assault that will be aimed at Bush’s first nominee to the Supreme Court.

No one knows when the first vacancy on the nation’s highest court will occur. It could happen as early as this summer. And just about every year, the court rules on a case that profoundly affects families of faith. That’s why Christians must remain vigilant and outspoken on the issue of political appointments.

Perhaps our seventh president, Andrew Jackson, said it best in 1822: “All the rights secured to the citizens under the Constitution are worth nothing, and a mere bubble, except guaranteed to them by an independent and virtuous judiciary.” l

Jay Sekulow, who has argued eight cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, is chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, an international public interest law firm and educational organization specializing in constitutional law and religious liberty work. The ACLJ is headquartered in Virginia Beach, Va., and the Web site address is

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download