Back to the Constitution with Supreme Court pick
The retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy from the U.S. Supreme Court is about to bring a 60-year battle to a head.
For decades the country has witnessed a fight between those who believe the Constitution speaks for itself and others who believe it says whatever the judges think it says, or even should say.
Already, the left is apoplectic. Fundraising letters are going out. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) sent one within minutes of Kennedy’s retirement announcement and Chris Matthews went ballistic on MSNBC, all but forecasting the end of theworld aswe know it.
A few examples will suffice to preview coming distractions fromthe central issue. Amongthe printable ones is this over-the-top comment by the Rev. Al Sharpton: “All civil and human rights are at stake.”
Journalist/author Molly Knight fired off this incendiary tweet: “How very cool of Justice Kennedy to pour kerosene onthe current dumpster fire that is America. The Roe v. Wade riots should provide fine entertainment for him in his retirement.” Riots?
Since the Warren Court decided praying to an authority higher than the state was unconstitutional and Bible reading in public schools was not what the Founders had in mind when writing the First Amendment, there has been a pitched battle for control of the Supreme Court. The left has used federal judges to engineer society in ways it could not have done, and probably would not have tried, through the legislative process while Conservatives have fought to prevent the court from exceeding its constitutional role by making law.
Abraham Lincoln said it well when he noted: “We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”
The late Justice Antonin Scalia summed up the conservative view of the Constitution when he said, “It means, today, not what current society, muchless the court, thinks it ought to mean, but what it meant when it was adopted.”
Two former justices gave the liberal view of the Constitution. Oliver Wen dell Holmes said: “The provisions of the Constitution are not mathematical formulas having their essence in their form; they are organic, living institutions transplanted from English soil. Their significance is vital, not formal; it is to be gathered not simply by taking thewords and a dictionary, but by considering their origin and the line of their growth.”
Fromthis came the notion of a “living Constitution,” which leads to the assertion by the late Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes that “...the Constitution is what the judges say it is.”
President Trump and the Republican Senate have an opportunity to reverse decades of wrongful constitutional decisionmaking. Fromhis list of 25 conservative candidates for Kennedy’s seat, hemust choose a nominee quickly so the Senate can take it up before Democrats and their media allies can become fully mobilized.
If the president selects someone with Judge Neil Gorsuch’s credentials, the left will have a difficult time opposing the candidate, though they will certainly try andmake accusations that have no merit. Email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com.