Is the Supreme Court Partisan? Of Course It Is.

The Senate Confirmation Committee has been grilling Elena Kagan this week. The Democrats on the committee just want to make it as easy as possible for her. The Republicans want to do everything they can to put obstacles in her way on the way to becoming the next Supreme Court Justice, the replacement for Justice John Paul Stevens.

Every time someone is nominated for the Supreme Court the debate begins between the concept of strict constructionism and loose constructionism, just interpreting the Constitution and using the court as an activist perch from which to advance an agenda. Currently the Republicans in Congress are railing against activist agendas and using the court to change society. Apparently, these Republicans were not against activist agendas when the Supreme Court saw fit to nullify ballots in Florida, thus assuring a Presidential victory for George W. Bush. Apparently, these Republicans have not been against an activist agenda when a Right leaning Supreme Court has done everything in its power to strike down attempts to limit the number of guns we have on the streets of our cities. Apparently, these Republicans have not been against an activist agenda when the current right leaning court has time and again upheld restrictions on a woman's right to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy or not.

So now when a Democratic President nominates a woman who has similar beliefs to his own, the Republican Party disingenuously claims to be taking the high road in opposing her nomination, in the name of strict constructionism of the Constitution and neutral judges without a political agenda. What a crock of b.s. Looks to me as if they define "activist agendas" as any idea that is in opposition to what they believe. Agree with me? That's neutral and well-reasoned. Disagree with me? That's radical activism designed to re-engineer society.

Let's face facts boys and girls. The U.S. Supreme Court is now and always has been partisan. Presidents always look for opportunities to pack the court with those who agree with themselves politically. When Justices die or retire, this always offers a President an opportunity to restructure the political makeup of the court so as to affect policy for years to come. Remember that Supreme Court Justices are appointed for life and can go on affecting policy in America long after the President who appointed them is gone.

Throughout history this battle has gone on in Washington. John Adams and the Federalists sought Supreme Court Justices who would uphold their vision for a more centralized national control while Thomas Jefferson and his Democratic-Republicans wanted justices who would uphold their vision of a federated society with devolving to the individual states. Abraham Lincoln and the newly formed Republican Party sought justices who would cement federal supremacy, hold the union together, and stop state efforts to thwart abolitionism. FDR tried to raise the number of justices on the court so he could get a majority on the court to support his New Deal policies. The Republican Party of Hoover fought this move so they could keep intact a court that would thwart the New Deal. Partisan battles one and all.

The battle goes on. The sad thing is that the Republican Party's current efforts to install another Democratic, left-leaning justice on the Supreme Court makes it look like their vision for America is to invent a time machine that would return us to 1950. Between Senator Sessions of Alabama and Senators from Oklahoma and Texas the confirmation hearings this week began to look like an inquisition from a bunch of pre-civil rights, pre-abortion rights Dixiecrats.

Let's face it. All Supreme Court nominees are political. All are partisan. All have a view of the universe that ties in with the current President, who nominated them in the first place. The confirmation and subsequent placement on the actual Supreme Court is a political move made possible by the party of the President and a sufficient number of votes in the Senate. The Democrats currently control the Senate and Elena Kagan will be our next new justice on the Supreme Court.

For the record, Ms. Kagan's position on the court will not do much to alter the voting composition of the U.S. Supreme Court. There are a number of conservative justices who will have to retire or die before the court becomes a bastion of liberalism. We have a few years left of Right-wing "Conservative Activism" on this court before it begins to seriously swing left. So all of you who worry about Ms. Kagan's ascendancy to the court, rest easy because nothing much is going to change.