Following the retirement announcement by Justice John Paul Stevens today, it is now up to the United States Senate to ensure that the successor justice will be a responsible jurist who will remain faithful to the Constitution. Never has it been more important in our nation’s history that the next Supreme Court justice be a person with a proven commitment to the original meaning of the Constitution and laws as they are written. Many laws being passed and issues being raised in Washington will likely require judicial scrutiny in the …
As we mentioned earlier today, Judge Andrew Napolitano, author and Fox News analyst, sat down with us this week to discuss a number of issues. In addition to the tea party and Obamacare, we also talked about what it would mean for Justice Stevens to retire and what type of nominee we could expect from President Obama. In light of today’s announcement that Justice Stevens is indeed stepping down, we are posting that full exchange for you here. In the interview, Judge Napolitano was candid in his analysis: “[Stevens'] views …
Rumors of a possible Supreme Court retirement this summer have Washington buzzing with anticipation. Adding to the intrigue is the controversial nomination of Goodwin Liu for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Senate Republicans used a procedural move Wednesday to postpone Liu’s hearing. But the delay will likely do little to lower the stakes surrounding his nomination. Liu’s outspoken opposition to the nominations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito made him a hero of the far left. And his stance on issues ranging from welfare rights to …
President Obama has received criticism from yet another Supreme Court justice concerning his inappropriate and unprecedented chastisement of the Court during the State of the Union address. Obama criticized the Court’s recent campaign finance opinion while six of the justices sat before him, obviously unable to respond to the criticism during the address. Tuesday, Chief Justice John Roberts told a group of University of Alabama law students that the State of the Union has “degenerated into a political pep rally” and, like his colleague Justice Thomas did just days after …
The false alarm concerning the possible resignation of Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr. sent shockwaves throughout the blogosphere and media outlets yesterday afternoon. Those of us who respect the Chief’s service to our country and fidelity to the Constitution were relieved when the rumors were false. But this fire drill served as a reminder of the importance of the judiciary in our society—an importance bloated by the Supreme Court’s usurpation of the proper policymaking functions of the other branches of the national government and of the states. The Supreme Court …
The New York Times highlighted a speech that Justice Clarence Thomas delivered at a Florida law school in which he defended the Supreme Court’s recent campaign finance decision in Citizens United v. FEC. In that speech, Thomas also addressed why he chose to forgo the president’s state of the union address: “I don’t go because it has become so partisan and it’s very uncomfortable for a judge to sit there,” he said, adding that “there’s a lot that you don’t hear on TV — the catcalls, the whooping and hollering …
I have to admit that if I had been sitting in the House chamber during President Obama’s State of the Union address, I would have had to fight the urge to have a Joe Wilson moment when the President unjustly criticized the Supreme Court, six of whose members were there. Why? Because the two claims President Obama made about the Court’s decision last week in the Citizens United case are categorically and undeniably false. President Obama claimed that the Supreme Court had “reversed a century of law to open the …
The “First Principles” on which this country were founded are the principles that the Heritage Foundation works to advance everyday. In today’s landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision of Citizens United v. FEC, a conservative majority on the Supreme Court upheld some of the most important principles: the right to engage in free speech, particularly political speech, and the right to freely associate. It is no surprise that these rights are in the very first amendment in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. The Founders, who had fought a …
On Monday, The New York Times carried an op-ed by Heritage Foundation scholar and former US Attorney General Ed Meese titled “Stacking the Deck Against Proposition 8.” In that piece, Mr. Meese criticized a series of pre-trial rulings issued by Judge Vaughn R. Walker in the landmark same-sex marriage case currently underway in federal court in San Francisco. One of those rulings involved Judge Walker’s controversial decision to broadcast the trial to other courthouses and post video recordings of the Prop 8 trial on the Internet. On Wednesday, the US …
