That
statement sent a shiver down the spines of many voters, not only because
President George W. Bush has tipped the U.S. Supreme Court decidedly to the
right, but because Justice John Paul Stevens just turned 88 on April 20.
Whoever
is elected president will likely appoint Stevens’ successor—and perhaps other
Supreme Court justices, since Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 75, Antonin Scalia is 72
and Anthony Kennedy will turn 72 this summer.
Candidate
McCain is currently touting his long history of supporting conservative jurists
on the bench in an effort to shore up his support from the right wing of the
Republican Party. That faction distrusts McCain for his participation in the
Gang of 14, a bipartisan effort that ultimately prevented Republican leaders
from rewriting the Senate rules on filibusters, as well as his campaign finance
law, which limits attack ads by corporations and unions in the weeks before an
election. When Wisconsin Right to Life took their campaign-financing case to
the Supreme Court and won a significant victory last summer, McCain called it
“regrettable.”
On
the stump, though, McCain has been saying that he would appoint conservative
judges just like President Bush has. McCain has cited Chief Justice John
Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito as being his model justices, and he’s also
praised Scalia, one of the most conservative justices ever to sit on the
Supreme Court.
McCain
has also promised to form a Justice Advisory Committee to help him make his
judicial appointments, and has invited Solicitor General Ted Olson and Sen. Sam
Brownback—two men on the far right of the Republican Party—to help him make his
picks.
And
he’s relying on scare tactics to drum up financial support for his campaign. In
an e-mail to potential donors, McCain says, “I write to you today about one big
issue in particular—the future of the U.S. Supreme Court.” He goes on to say
that Democrats “will appoint those who make law with disregard for the will of
the people.”
But
if McCain gets his hands on the Supreme Court, expect the right to privacy to
vanish and Roe v. Wade to be
overturned. (Apparently McCain and his heiress wife, Cindy, only believe in
privacy when it concerns Cindy’s tax returns; she said last week she would
never make them public, even if she became the first lady, so we’ll never know
the extent to which her $100 million fortune has affected her husband’s
political career.)
A
McCain-era court would no doubt expand the scope of presidential power, while the
rights of corporations would increase and environmental protections would be
rolled back. The government’s use of torture and warrantless wiretapping would
most likely be upheld by the courts, even though former POW McCain made a
feeble attempt to make waterboarding illegal before capitulating to Bush’s
wishes last year.
McCain
has a long history of supporting conservatives, even when they’re far out of
the mainstream. In 1987, McCain vigorously supported the nomination of
uber-conservative jurist Robert Bork, who was nominated by then-President
Ronald Reagan for the nation’s highest court. In 1973, Bork proved his loyalty
to Richard Nixon by firing Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox in an attempt to
halt his investigation into Watergate.
But
Bork wasn’t so loyal to McCain. The controversial judge-turned-author endorsed
Republican Mitt Romney for president in December 2007, saying, “No other
candidate will do more to advance the conservative judicial movement than Gov.
Mitt Romney.”
What’s your take?
Write:
editor@shepex.com
Winghunter
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