Carol Platt Liebau: The New Democratic (Court) Strategy

Thursday, March 30, 2006

The New Democratic (Court) Strategy

In this piece, law professor Ronald Cass warns against the ongoing effort by those who oppose him to find ways to marginalize Justice Antonin Scalia.

As I pointed out here some months ago, some Democrats tried a silly and frontal assault on Justice Scalia's ethics. Now, they're challenging his impartiality.

The end game, as Professor Cass points out, is to try to secure the Justice's disqualification on important cases, or to minimize his impact when he does participate. Having failed to block confirmation of two conservative justices, it's apparently become the new Democratic strategy to keep the conservatives from getting to 5.

They've pretty much done all the damage to Justice Thomas that they can (and Justice Thomas makes fewer colorful appearances than Justice Scalia does); Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito haven't been on the Court long enough to present themselves as juicy post-confirmation targets; and no one on the left wants to alienate Justice Kennedy, who has increasingly voted their way on many important cases (most notably on gay rights and and the death penalty for those under 18).

Justice Scalia has inveighed against the politicization of judicial nominations. And now he's being subjected to the increasing, and disturbing, politicization of judicial service, as well.

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