01/03: Court Challenge to Faith-Based Initiative
Category: Religion & Public Policy
Posted by: an okie gardener
Perhaps the best "one-stop-shopping" for information on the current court challenge is LawMemo here.
Other sources are found in my earlier post.
At this juncture, the court case will decide whether taxpayers have the standing in court to sue the executive branch over a First-Amendment issue such as the Faith-Based Initiative. If the Supreme Court rules in favor of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, then I assume the foundation will then take the Bush Administration to court over the constitutionality of the Faith-Based Initiative plan.
For historical background on church and state in the U.S., see the category Religion and Public Policy on the right of this blog.
Other sources are found in my earlier post.
At this juncture, the court case will decide whether taxpayers have the standing in court to sue the executive branch over a First-Amendment issue such as the Faith-Based Initiative. If the Supreme Court rules in favor of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, then I assume the foundation will then take the Bush Administration to court over the constitutionality of the Faith-Based Initiative plan.
For historical background on church and state in the U.S., see the category Religion and Public Policy on the right of this blog.
Tocqueville wrote:
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Perhaps the saddest thing in the book, though mentioned only in passing, is that some "highly qualified" potential nominees for the Supreme Court "had not wanted their names considered" because the Senate confirmation process had become "too bitter and too vitriolic" and "they just didn't want any part of
it."
The momentous and lasting repercussions of Supreme Court decisions mean that people of the highest caliber and character are needed on that court. There are too few who are "highly qualified" to lose any of them.
The ugly and cheap circus atmosphere of Senate confirmation hearings is just one of the factors which cause top notch people not to be nominated, while others who are little more than warm bodies are seated on the highest court in the land.
According to "Supreme Conflict," Circuit Court Judge Laurence Silberman was passed over as "too controversial" for a Supreme Court nomination, in favor of David Souter, who was the closest thing to a blank slate that any human being could be.
Judge Silberman would have been one of the great Supreme Court justices of the age, while Souter has been one of the worst. The difference was momentous -- and disastrous -- for the whole future of American law, especially in a court with so many 5 to 4 decisions.
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Of course, no liberal or leftist judge or aspirant has anything to fear from the nomination process (see Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 99-0). But the Democrats have successfully created a meat grinder into which they can feed conservative nominees and, even if the opposition proves unsuccessful, employ the victim as an example to deter prospective nominees (the more qualified the nominee, the stronger the coercive message; see Robert Bork, the most "qualified" nominee perhaps ever) and horrify the nominees family and friends into urging the prospect's early declination. Beautifully effective and sufficiently subtle to avoid the light of public awareness.