Judicial Hearings Too Partisan
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Scalia: Judicial Hearings Too Partisan
By ANNE GEARAN
Associated Press Writer
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Judges have become too much like politicians, with the unfortunate result that picking new ones has become needlessly partisan and time-consuming, Justice Antonin Scalia said Thursday.
As long as judges tinker with the Constitution to "do what the people want," instead of what the document actually commands, politicians who pick and confirm new federal judges will naturally want only those who agree with them politically, Scalia said.
"And so politics has made itself known," Scalia told an audience of the Philadelphia Bar Association.
Good judges are honest lawyers who stick to the letter of the law or the Constitution, whatever their political philosophy, Scalia said.
Scalia, one of the Supreme Court's most reliable conservatives, recalled that he sailed through his own 1986 high court confirmation by a Senate vote of 98-0. He implied the same result would be impossible in today's nearly evenly split, highly partisan Senate.
"Just between you and me," he jokingly told hundreds of lawyers at a luncheon, "I have always been a fairly conservative person. I think that was known 18 years ago."
The politicians who chose and confirmed him back then apparently also knew that he would not "shade a decision to make it come out the way I want," Scalia said.
Scalia himself is one of the judges most frequently hailed by conservatives who claim the court system is top-heavy with liberal or "activist" judges. As a candidate, President Bush said he would fill any Supreme Court vacancy with judges like Scalia or Justice Clarence Thomas.
Both justices call themselves "textualists."
Scalia's address was apparently his first public speech since a U.S. marshal seized news reporters' tape recorders during a Scalia speech in Mississippi earlier this month.
He apologized and said he would clarify his prohibition on electronic coverage of his speeches to allow small recording devices reporters often use to help take notes.
The new policy was spelled out in ground rules for Thursday's speech. Scalia maintained his ban on broadcast or television recording.
Scalia was in Philadelphia to hand out a new bar association award named for him.
"It's a little risky. You should really wait until a person is dead," Scalia said. "You never know what they'll do later."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scalia: Judicial Hearings Too Partisan
By ANNE GEARAN
Associated Press Writer
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Judges have become too much like politicians, with the unfortunate result that picking new ones has become needlessly partisan and time-consuming, Justice Antonin Scalia said Thursday.
As long as judges tinker with the Constitution to "do what the people want," instead of what the document actually commands, politicians who pick and confirm new federal judges will naturally want only those who agree with them politically, Scalia said.
"And so politics has made itself known," Scalia told an audience of the Philadelphia Bar Association.
Good judges are honest lawyers who stick to the letter of the law or the Constitution, whatever their political philosophy, Scalia said.
Scalia, one of the Supreme Court's most reliable conservatives, recalled that he sailed through his own 1986 high court confirmation by a Senate vote of 98-0. He implied the same result would be impossible in today's nearly evenly split, highly partisan Senate.
"Just between you and me," he jokingly told hundreds of lawyers at a luncheon, "I have always been a fairly conservative person. I think that was known 18 years ago."
The politicians who chose and confirmed him back then apparently also knew that he would not "shade a decision to make it come out the way I want," Scalia said.
Scalia himself is one of the judges most frequently hailed by conservatives who claim the court system is top-heavy with liberal or "activist" judges. As a candidate, President Bush said he would fill any Supreme Court vacancy with judges like Scalia or Justice Clarence Thomas.
Both justices call themselves "textualists."
Scalia's address was apparently his first public speech since a U.S. marshal seized news reporters' tape recorders during a Scalia speech in Mississippi earlier this month.
He apologized and said he would clarify his prohibition on electronic coverage of his speeches to allow small recording devices reporters often use to help take notes.
The new policy was spelled out in ground rules for Thursday's speech. Scalia maintained his ban on broadcast or television recording.
Scalia was in Philadelphia to hand out a new bar association award named for him.
"It's a little risky. You should really wait until a person is dead," Scalia said. "You never know what they'll do later."
