Judicial activists in the Supreme Court

[Swede]

Three days of Supreme Court arguments over the health-care law demonstrated for all to see that conservative justices are prepared to act as an alternative legislature, diving deeply into policy details as if they were members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Senator, excuse me, Justice Samuel Alito quoted Congressional Budget Office figures on Tuesday to talk about the insurance costs of the young. On Wednesday, Chief Justice John Roberts sounded like the House whip in discussing whether parts of the law could stand if other parts fell. He noted that without various provisions, Congress “wouldn’t have been able to put together, cobble together, the votes to get it through.” Tell me again, was this a courtroom or a lobbyist’s office?

It fell to the court’s liberals — the so-called “judicial activists,” remember? — to remind their conservative brethren that legislative power is supposed to rest in our government’s elected branches.

Justice Stephen Breyer noted that some of the issues raised by opponents of the law were about “the merits of the bill,” a proper concern of Congress, not the courts. And in arguing for restraint, Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked what was wrong with leaving as much discretion as possible “in the hands of the people who should be fixing this, not us.” It was nice to be reminded that we’re a democracy, not a judicial dictatorship.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/activist-judges-on-trial/2012/03/28/gIQAKdE2gS_story.html

[Dawson Leery]

1. The further to the right a judge is, the more likely they are to over-rule congress.

[hughee99]

2. What was wrong with leaving as much discretion as possible

“in the hands of the people who should be fixing this, not us.”? Potentially, EVERYTHING is wrong with this.

When that discretion has the potential to tramples constitutional rights, I'm NOT in favor of leaving that for congress to decide. I thought the whole idea of the constitution was to try to lay out what the federal government does and DOES NOT have the authority to do. Hell, were it not for the bill of rights (which some of the founders didn't even want to include), everything would be left to the "discretion" of our elected officials.