Extremism = Balance?
At least one conservative Senator is using the notion of “balance” to justify appointing a strict constructionist justice to fill the spot of the retiring Sandra Day O’Connor, a moderate. Senator Charles Grassley, (R) of Iowa today on the noon edition of MSNBC’s Connected said there were currently four liberal justices, two moderates, and three conservatives. With the retirement of O’Connor, this is an opportunity to have four liberals, four conservatives, and one moderate. He says, “What we’re after here is not moving to the right. We’re after bringing balance to the Court.” Of course you’d have to move to the right in order to achieve that “balance.” It is an idea that I think George Orwell would be proud of.
posted by Ed Bremson, MFA @ 2:14 PM
1 Comments:
At 3:42 PM,
Ed Bremson, MFA said…
Further remarks on this subject:
The idea of bringing balance to the Court presumes that balance doesn’t exist now, or that somehow the Court is out of balance. (I know you can say there are four here and three there, but I think a good balance exists already, with Justice O’Connor accounting for much of that balance. I think a lot of people agree.) I think you bring balance to the Court and to its deliberations not by polarizing it (we all see the effects of polarization every day) but by appointing a moderate who would vote with conservatives sometimes and with liberals other times. Besides, if you have two vacancies in the near future, how are you going to bring balance then? If you appoint two conservatives, then you’re out of balance again. Is Grassley suggesting we appoint one conservative and one moderate? Why not an entire Court of moderates, deciding cases on their merits and not on some preconceived ideology?
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