Laffey supporter The Club for Growth passes this news from the Evans-Novak Political Report on its blog (UPDATE: Thanks to Reconcilable Differences for the link to a free version of the full E-N report.):
Republicans in Rhode Island say that Sen. Chafee had given private assurances that he would be supporting the Alito Supreme Court nomination. His reversal on this issue drew a public rebuke from his most reluctant supporter, popular Gov. Don Carcieri (R), and endangers him in his primary race against Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey (R). Laffey must now be considered the narrow frontrunner in the Republican Senate primary after crossing the $1-million mark and outraising Chafee in individual contributions for the quarter.
Chafee maintains a two-to-one cash advantage after beating Laffey with PAC money and making himself a $330,000 campaign loan. But he may need a lot more than that to survive. Another negative for him on the Alito issue is the fact that it is probably impossible for him to win a Republican primary in Rhode Island without significant support from the state’s large Italian population.
Rhode Island’s primary doesn’t happen until September. If he sees the writing on the wall, Chafee could well choose to run as an independent.
It would make sense, it is Rhode Island’s largest voting bloc, after all.
[Open full post]Earlier this morning, I called Professor Darrell West, Director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown University, and asked why Rhode Island Republican Primary Senate results were not included in the February 2006 State Survey. Professor West answered that it is too hard to predict where independents will go.
If you look back at 2002, there were about 240,000 ballots cast for Governor in the general election, while only 25,000 people voted in the contested Republican Gubernatorial primary. That means the poll sample of 785 probably contains around 80-90 likely Republican primary voters.
To have any chance at all of giving an accurate snapshot of the race, the Brown University pollsters would have to figure out some way to identify independents likely to vote in a Republcan primary (when many independents themselves probabaly haven’t decided which primary they’re going to vote in!) and then conduct a second poll to get a big enough sample of Republicans + Republican-voting independents.
One of the most powerful long-term benefits of the Senate hearings for Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito was that the American people were reintroduced to the proper and limited role of the judiciary as envisioned by our Founders. In other words, conservatives were not simply seeking to confirm judges who will be activists – albeit conservative ones – from the bench.
This proper role for judges was discussed last year when Terry Eastland wrote an editorial entitled Chief Justice Roberts: The distinction between law and politics that the Judiciary Democrats do not respect lies at the heart of Roberts’s approach to judging, in which he said:
[Open full post]On the final day of the Roberts hearings, Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois tried one last time: “If you’ve made one point many times over…the course of the last three days,” he told the judge, “it is that as a judge you will be loyal and faithful to the process of law, to the rule of law.” But “beyond loyalty to the process of law,” he asked Roberts, “how do you view [the] law when it comes to expanding our personal freedom?…That’s what I’ve been asking.”
And so, in various ways, had Durbin’s Democratic colleagues been asking about such matters–ones “beyond loyalty” to the rule of law. In response to Durbin, Roberts stuck to the point he had indeed made “many times over.” Reframing the senator’s question so as to reach the core issue, Roberts said, “Somebody asked me, you know, ‘Are you going to be on the side of the little guy?’ And you obviously want to give an immediate answer. But as you reflect on it, if the Constitution says that the little guy should win, the little guy is going to win in court before me. But if the Constitution says that the big guy should win, well, then the big guy is going to win, because my obligation is to the Constitution. That’s the oath. The oath that a judge takes is not that ‘I’ll look out for particular interests.’…The oath is to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States, and that’s what I would do.”
That exchange crystallized the fundamental difference between John Roberts and the eight Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Democrats believe a good judge will move “beyond loyalty” to the rule of law, if necessary, and seek to advance certain political outcomes–in Durbin’s question, the expansion of personal freedom. Roberts dissents: He believes a good judge will distinguish between law and politics and stick resolutely to the law, regardless of the result…
As for just how Roberts will go about interpreting the law–and thus carrying out his oath–his testimony last week confirmed his earlier observation that he does not have “an overarching judicial philosophy.”…
There is unease among some conservatives as to how Chief Justice Roberts will turn out. Yet it must be said that Roberts has made emphatically clear his view that a judge must be restrained by the law–the rules, principles, customs, practices, and understandings that define it–and must not allow the law to be infused with the judge’s own political views and personal values. In other words, the distinction between law and politics that the Judiciary Democrats do not respect lies at the heart of Roberts’s approach to judging…
Roberts took care on numerous occasions to emphasize the importance of the distinction between law and politics as it relates to judging. For example, in response to Lindsey Graham’s question about what the judge regarded as the biggest threats to the rule of law today, Roberts identified only one threat–the “tendency on behalf of some judges to take . . . [their] authority and extend it into areas where they’re going beyond the interpretation of the Constitution, where they’re making the law”–the province of elected officials. He observed: “Judges have to recognize that their role is a limited one. That is the basis of their legitimacy. I’ve said it before and I’ll just repeat myself: The Framers were not the sort of people, having fought a revolution to get the right of self-government, to sit down and say, ‘Let’s take all the difficult issues before us and let’s have the judges decide them.’ That would have been the farthest thing from their mind.”
The failure of the Judiciary Democrats to applaud comments like these, their evident desire to have justices and judges who go beyond any loyalty to the rule of law to advance “progressive” visions, demonstrates how far their party has traveled since the middle of the past century, when Justices Robert Jackson and Felix Frankfurter still sat on the Court. Jackson (whom Roberts admires, by the way) and Frankfurter sought to preserve the judiciary “in its established but limited place in American politics,” wrote Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. in 1947. But Hugo Black and William O. Douglas aimed to settle particular cases, Schlesinger said, “in accordance with their own social preconceptions”–such that, as a Yale law professor of that era said, “the less favored in life [would] be the more favored in law.” By the end of the Warren Court, political judging had become the norm for most Democrats. So it has been ever since, and so it is today that a nominee committed to judicial restraint like Roberts received the reception he did from the law firm of Leahy, Kennedy, Feinstein, Biden, Schumer, Feingold, and Durbin…
Some of the numbers in the White House’s description of the Advanced Energy Initiative worry me. It seems, judging by the amount spent, that a serious effort is being made with respect to coal and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles…
The President’s Coal Research Initiative. Coal provides more than half of the Nation’s electricity supply, and America has enough coal to last more than 200 years. As part of the National Energy Policy, the President committed $2 billion over 10 years to speed up research in the use of clean coal technologies to generate electricity while meeting environmental regulations at low cost.However, in other areas, the amounts being spent lead me to believe that the efforts are little more than symbolic…
The Hydrogen Fuel Initiative. In his 2003 State of the Union address, President Bush announced a $1.2 billion Hydrogen Fuel Initiative to develop technology for commercially viable hydrogen-powered fuel cells…
The President’s Solar America Initiative. The 2007 Budget will propose a new $148 million Solar America Initiative — an increase of $65 million over FY06 — to accelerate the development of semiconductor materials that convert sunlight directly to electricity…I know money doesn’t solve all research problems. But money does allow the solvable problems to be solved a whole lot faster.
Expanding Clean Energy from Wind. The 2007 Budget includes $44 million for wind energy research — a $5 million increase over FY06 levels. This will help improve the efficiency and lower the costs of new wind technologies for use in low-speed wind environments…
The Biorefinery Initiative. To achieve greater use of “homegrown” renewable fuels in the United States, advanced technologies need to be perfected to make fuel ethanol from cellulosic (plant fiber) biomass, which is now discarded as waste. The President’s 2007 Budget will include $150 million — a $59 million increase over FY06 — to help develop bio-based transportation fuels from agricultural waste products, such as wood chips, stalks, or switch grass…
Developing More Efficient Vehicles. …Advanced battery technologies offer the potential to significantly reduce oil consumption in the near-term. The 2007 Budget includes $30 million — a $6.7 million increase over FY06 — to speed up the development of this battery technology and extend the range of these vehicles….
Now, think in terms of other numbers you’ve seen associated with the Federal budget. $148,000,000 on Solar power — which could benefit the whole country — is only about 2/3 of what the Federal government was going to spend on a single bridge in Alaska (and now that money is just being given to the Alaska state legislature). $44,000,000 for wind energy research? That’s less than what was earmarked in the highway bill for constructing bike paths and buying up land to limit growth near route 95 within the State of Rhode Island alone.
The relative amounts allocated in this “major” initiative imply one or more of the following…
1. The administration is not serious about promoting these programs. These are token sums, intended mainly to score political points by making it look like the government is doing something.
2. Things like wind and solar and biofuels have no immediate future on the scale that the country needs. In other words, if wind or solar could solve our energy problems soon, wouldn’t the government pouring the same amount of money into them that we are about to pour into buying digital-to-analog TV converters ($3,000,000,000) for everyone in the country?
3. The alternative energy problem is not really a research problem anymore. We already know how to make good windmills, and solar cells, and biofuels, and there’s not a whole lot more to be done. The real problem, now, is disseminating the technology and bringing products to market.
My fear is that the problem is a combination of 1 & 3. Reducing regulation and supporting businesses that will build and sell the new technologies are what need attention, but talking about reducing regulation is not sexy enough to score political points, so the government spends most of its effort (and our dollars) on funding a few, high profile, but low practical reward projects. [Open full post]
After a session of yesterday’s Senate wiretap hearings, Paul Mirengoff of Power Line asked a couple of tough questions to Senators Edward Kennedy and Richard Durbin. Rather than answering the questions, Senator Durbin responded by asking who Mirengeroff was working for. Pajamas Media has the video, Stephen Spruiell has a transcript. I’d be remiss if I didn’t let the blogosphere know that not all elected officeholders share Senator Durbin’s attitude.
A few weeks ago, I attended a press briefing following Senator Lincoln Chafee’s meeting with Rhode Islanders for Judge Alito (here is the post that resulted). The “press pool” turned out to be rather small, a reporter from the Projo and myself.
I identified myself as being from a local political weblog called Anchor Rising. I am not sure if the Senator and his staff were familiar with Anchor Rising’s content, but whatever the answer, no one questioned my credentials or my right to be there and Senator Chafee answered the two questions I asked with the same seriousness he afforded the questions asked by the professional journalist in attendance.
I hope that more of our elected officials follow Senator Chafee’s example in this matter and find a way to welcome new media into the means they use to keep the public informed.
George Conway over at Reconcilable Differences continues to focus national attention on the RI GOP primary and has some good stuff. Last night, he discovered that the NRSC continues its campaign of taking down stories on its web site that contain anti-Chafee comments. He also pointed to another NRSC pro-Chafee story that could use some commenting (wink wink). I wonder what would happen if anti-Chafee/pro-Laffey opinions continued to be expressed in the comments section of those stories? (BTW, George has also preserved many of the since-removed comments in this PDF).
In the meantime, a letter to the editor in today’s ProJo exhibits the problem that Sen. Chafee is having by continuing to show indecisiveness and a lack of conviction:
For years, Sen. Lincoln Chafee has tiptoed between appeasing the radical wing of the Republican Party and maintaining his electability at home. However, with the Bush-Rove stranglehold over party discipline, Senator Chafee has lost his so-called independence. Rather, he has become better known for ruffling feathers in early opposition to Republican initiatives, but ultimately capitulating.
When it matters, Senator Chafee is nowhere to be found. His so-called conscience vote against Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito was just a hollow gesture, aimed at mitigating his election-year vulnerability in an overwhelmingly liberal state.
Mr. Chafee may have taken a “stand” this time, but he has too often been on the wrong side when his vote could really have made a difference.
Sounds like the same arguments we’ve been making, but from the other side of the ideological spectrum.
Meanwhile, despite Sen. Chafee’s apparent belief that “moderate” and liberal (Democrat) voters will vote for him in the GOP primary, the tightening race on the Democratic side can do nothing but hurt his chances. And while Sen. Chafee “hems and haws” and hopes that the NRSC can continue to carry his water, Mayor Laffey continues to be out front in his campaign against pork barrel spending.
If Jim Baron of the Pawtucket Times thinks these numbers are worth reporting, then I am willing to accept that they have some meaning…
U.S. Senate candidate Matt Brown says a new poll shows he has caught up with and passed his Democratic primary opponent Sheldon Whitehouse.However, I won’t go as far as to endorse the statement below until I see the Brown University poll results scheduled for release later this month…
The poll of 502 likely Democratic primary voters conducted by telephone on Feb. 1 and 2 shows Brown with a 38-36 percent lead over Whitehouse in the three-way contest. Nowhere does the poll mention the third candidate, Carl Sheeler, although he is counted as “other” and is credited with 3 percent support.
“A chapter of this campaign has closed,” [Matt Brown Campaign Spokesman Matt Burgess] declared. “Sheldon Whitehouse had an opportunity to end it. If he had taken a strong stand on the issues and campaigned aggressively, he might have been able to end the campaign early” using his upper hand in name recognition.[Open full post]
D. W. MacKenzie wrote in the October 2002 issue of The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty, the monthly publication of the Foundation for Economic Education, about the coercive role of government:
I am government…
Coercion is both my vocation and my avocation; it is in my very nature to compel others to do that which they otherwise would not do. My nature should then be of great concern to you as I impinge on your liberty. My nature affects your life profoundly. Indeed, there is little in your life that escapes my grasp. I am also a mystery to many. Some see me as benevolent, though I murdered 119 million people in the twentieth century. Some see me as omniscient, though I face an insurmountable knowledge problem in trying to comprehend the society I seek to control. Some see me as an absolute necessity, though people have lived in societies without me. But those whom I use seldom recognize any of this. These naive convictions grant me an unwarranted place in society. These misconceptions have imposed great hardships on ordinary people, though they have served an elite of rulers well…
I benefit few at the expense of the many. Small groups organize easily, and large ones do not. Hence if I serve any interests other than those of actual rulers, I serve narrow interests. I grant monopoly privileges to influential industrialists and trade associations. I do this with tariffs and import restrictions that hobble foreign competitors. I do this with regulations that place burdens on new businesses. I do this with licensing laws that restrict access to professions. Of course, these interests pay me to get what they want. Sometimes they pay me simply to leave them alone.
My form is difficult to comprehend as well. I am vast and complex. No one can fathom me in all my complexity. I comprise a gargantuan array of agencies, statutes and regulations, and discretionary policies. No one would have the time or the intellectual capacity to know me fully even if he were to try. There is little point in trying anyway. One person can do nothing to me. No significant election has ever turned on a single vote, so voters have no obvious incentive to learn about me…
I am responsible for all the worst unnatural tragedies and unnecessary burdens that mankind has endured. Yet it seems that no one knows how to stop me. How can this be? My true nature is not easy to discern. When tragedy strikes, I am called into action. If I raise taxes to fund the effort to deal with crises, all can see my costs clearly. If I instead expand my authority to conscript resources, I hide my true costs, thus causing many to overestimate the net benefit of my actions. This instills unduly favorable beliefs about me in many minds.
…There have been successful efforts to restrain me for extended periods of time…In such places, people have prospered. But I have often succeeded in making strong comebacks. Some seek to limit my power with constitutional rules. However, there are strong reasons to doubt the efficacy of these rules. Persons who have power to enforce constitutional rules also have the power to flout them.
Why then do I ever fail?…There must be an answer, because I do sometimes falter…my failures are relatively uncommon. As difficult as the issues here are, they are vitally important to you because the continued success of free societies hinges on them. What is more important to you than that?
And here is why America’s Founding was different, even though we have lost our way in recent decades.
[Open full post]Discussing the recent Supreme Court decision on Oregon’s assisted suicide law, the Wall Street Journal editorial entitled Federalism, a la Carte (available for a fee) states:
Supreme Court watchers can be forgiven if they thought they were in a Twilight Zone episode yesterday as they read the 6-3 opinion upholding Oregon’s assisted-suicide law against attempted federal encroachment. The High Court’s liberal wing, joined by Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy, has suddenly discovered the Constitutional virtues of federalism.
Meanwhile, Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, along with Chief Justice John Roberts, argue in favor of the broad grant of federal power that the Attorney General was seeking in Gonzales v. Oregon. Count us with the federalists in this one, even if they are of the born-again variety.
The case concerned the Bush Administration’s attempt to use the 1970 Controlled Substances Act to invalidate an Oregon statute passed in the 1990s that has allowed about 200 state residents to kill themselves with a doctor-assisted barbiturate cocktail. The state’s voters have twice endorsed the statute in referendums. But former Attorney General John Ashcroft tried to block the statute on grounds that the drugs the state allowed to be used for the suicide had been abused under federal law.
Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy unloads a paean to states’ rights worthy of the folks at the Cato Institute. [See page 6 here.] The federal statute “manifests no intent to regulate the practice of medicine generally,” he writes, and such “silence is understandable given the structure and limitations of federalism, which allow the States ‘great latitude under their police powers to legislate to the protection of the lives, limbs, health, comfort, and quiet of all persons.'”
That sounds good to us, since a policy on assisted suicide is profoundly about health and local police powers. We don’t favor assisted suicide as a policy, especially as evidence has grown about the way it has been abused to become euthanasia in Europe. But in the American system, there’s no good reason that Washington should be able to trump states’ rights in the matter.
…The Court’s majority holds that the federal law in question did not give the Attorney General the authority to determine what constitutes “legitimate medical practice” for the entire country, but was something for the states to decide.
In his characteristically caustic dissent [see page 34 in above link], Justice Scalia zeroes in on the word “legitimate,” and says it is a “naked value judgment” for the Court to decide that somehow the AG lacks such authority because the case involves a practice (suicide) the liberals presumably endorse. And he has a point, insofar as Justice Kennedy’s opinion jumps through logical hoops to square this decision with so many of its previous cases upholding federal power against the states…
In his own brief dissent [see page 59 in above link], Justice Thomas cuts to the heart of the hypocrisy, pointing out that a mere seven months ago five of the six Justices in the majority in Oregon found broad federal authority under the same Controlled Substances Act to forbid the growth of medical marijuana, overruling a California law permitting the practice in Gonzales v. Raich.
Justice Thomas had argued for a more-limited federal authority in Raich, but in Oregon he seems to have cast what amounts to a protest vote for the minority. “I agree with limiting the applications of the CSA in a manner consistent with the principles of federalism and our constitutional structure,” Justice Thomas writes. “But that is now water over the dam.” In other words, he’s not about to join the Court’s liberals in ignoring their own precedents simply to get to their favored policy conclusion.
We sympathize with Justice Thomas’s suggestion that this is another case of results-oriented jurisprudence in federalist drag. But then again, even liberals come to the right conclusion once in a while. And if this case has led them to have greater respect for state prerogatives on profound cultural issues that ought to be settled by voters, rather than judges, so much the better for our democracy.
…Results-oriented jurisprudence isn’t any more admirable from the right than it is from the left.
In a subsequent letter to the editor (also available for a fee), Roger Pilon of the Cato Institute responds to the above reference to the Cato Institute and offers a clarification about the difference between federalism and states’ rights:
In an otherwise excellent editorial commending the Supreme Court for rejecting a federal challenge to Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act…you write that “Justice Kennedy unloads a paean to states’ rights worthy of the folks at the Cato Institute.”
We appreciate the ink, of course, but pause simply to note that “federalism” is not quite the same as “states’ rights.” Rather, it is at bottom about dual sovereignty concerning enumerated and thus limited powers — and hence about pitting power against power for the sake, ideally, of liberty. The sad history surrounding “states’ rights” points to the difficulty often of achieving that ideal. But more often federalism, or dual sovereignty, affords liberties unavailable in a unitary system, as the Oregon case illustrates. Thus, we stand rather less for states’ rights than for federalism, a principle at the heart of the Constitution.
Mark Moller of the Cato Institute offers further commentary on the case, with particular attention to Justice Thomas’ dissenting opinion.
[Open full post]In a January 14 Wall Street Journal article entitled Not All Law is Politics in Robes (available for a fee), Jonathan Adler offers these comments:
…Sen. Joseph Biden suggested in frustration that the Senate scrap confirmation hearings and simply debate the nominee’s decisions as if they were considering legislation.
Mr. Biden’s remarks are symptomatic of a larger problem: the assumption that judicial nominees are politicians with policy views that they will — and should — impose from the bench. This assumption is most brazenly made when interest groups characterize nominees as “for” or “against” specific policies…
This is not an entirely new phenomenon…Yet the scale of activist involvement in judicial nominations today is unprecedented…It doesn’t hurt, too, that a high-profile campaign to block (or support) a Supreme Court nominee is an effective way to raise funds.
For most groups, opposition to Judge Alito is purely result-oriented…
Journalists have also treated judicial nominees like political candidates. Several media outlets conducted quantitative analyses of Judge Alito’s decisions, detailing how often he held “for” or “against” a given side. Instead of analyzing his reasoning, and the extent to which it adhered to or departed from applicable precedent, the analyses tallied his opinions based upon their results…These analyses, in turn, were relied upon by senators seeking to tar Judge Alito as “for” or “against” given causes.
Setting aside the methodological problems…such analyses are not particularly probative of judicial fitness…The relevant question is not who won or lost but whether the judge applied the law in a neutral and consistent manner…
Viewing judges as life-tenured politicians who get to impose their own policy preferences furthers the downward spiral of judicial politicization. To be sure, judges themselves are not blameless. The Supreme Court’s willingness to inject itself into controversies traditionally resolved by the political branches of government only encourages interest groups to devote resources to shaping the federal bench.
Reversing the trend will be difficult. In today’s political climate, to say that the judiciary should not resolve an issue is itself viewed as taking a side. Ironically, the same senators who worry that Judge Alito shows insufficient respect for the political branches are aghast that he might leave some thorny issues for the elected branches to sort out…
…Judge Alito stressed that the process of judging — the exercise of judgment rather than will — is more important than a specific result. His testimony was a forthright reminder that not all law is politics in robes…
Which is why Wendy Long wrote the following in Justice Alito: What It Means:
[Open full post]The confirmation of Justice Alito is a great moment for the country for two reasons.
One: the triumph of quality. We have a new Justice with outstanding qualifications and experience, proving that the demagogues of the liberal left can no longer ‘Bork’ such outstanding nominees. The process is still nasty, and the demagogues still try their hardest, but the partisan judicial filibuster has failed…it is clear that his attackers are the real extremists.
Two: the triumph of the philosophy of judicial restraint. Americans are appreciating the virtue of judicial modesty and respect for democracy in our courts. The last few years, Americans have grown increasingly frustrated with out-of-control judges imposing a leftist agenda on them through judicial activism…Justices like Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito hold the promise of greater faithfulness to the Constitution and the laws enacted by the people through their elected representatives. Today, a significant step has been taken in restoring American self-government.
