We're highlighting Folding Star's strong post at A Winding Road on O'Connor's announcement because we think there's a positive message (get ready to fight) and because we want we to be sure everyone grasps what's at stake.
O'Connor Retires and We Progressives Ready Ourselves for the Challenge
Like so many of you, I'm sure, the news of Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement from the Supreme Court hit me hard today and weighed heavy on my thinking all day long.
I was getting ready for work this morning when I turned on the computer and got online to do a check of the news. I can't ever leave for work without knowing what's been going on in the world.
The O'Connor news was the first thing I saw and it was like a bucket of cold water in the face. Though I knew that a retirement could still come at any time, I was relieved when the court's current term ended last Monday without any retirement announcements.
I was prepared for Rehnquist to step down, and could at least comfort myself with the knowledge that Bush replacing one far right conservative with another wouldn't change the balance of the court.
But this is what we've all feared for the past four and a half years. A retirement of a moderate or liberal Justice during Bush's time in office has the potential to drastically change the court and, through it, the country.
O'Connor was one of the moderate votes on the court, often the deciding vote on crucial cases. It's largely thanks to her 'swing' vote that a woman's right to choose has continued to be recognized under the laws of this country.
Moderates like O'Connor used to be the norm in the Republican party, though they're becoming few and far between these days.
While I respect O'Connor for the most part, her clearly biased decision in the Bush v. Gore case and her decision to retire at a time when she knows that the man choosing her replacement will likely pick someone who will do his or her best to undo all the work she's done leave me feeling dubious towards her. It's a shame that the first woman on the Supreme Court tainted her legacy towards the end by joining the extremists in a decision that was anything but moderate, as she did after the 2000 election.
And so, the thing I and so many of us feared has happened. Bush gets to replace a moderate Justice.
The Democrats in the Senate have GOT to stand firm on making sure that any extremist nominee is stopped in their tracks. We know Bush will nominate a Conservative, and that is his right. What we and the Senate Dems need to make sure of is that the nominee is someone who believes in the law and the Constitution of this country, someone who doesn't have an ideology set in stone which they use in their 'interpretation' of the law.
The best Justices have been those who, whether liberal or conservative in their personal political outlook, have been open minded and fair in their reading of the law and of our Constitution.
It's hard to imagine, especially after his recent Federal Court appointees, that Bush will willingly choose such a person. He's clearly going to go for someone in the Rehnquist/Scalia/Thomas mould if at all possible.
It's up to the Senate Democrats to make sure that such a nominee is shut down, just as Robert Bork was during Reagan's second term. It's their job to force Bush, if necessary, into nominating someone more in the mould of O'Connor herself.
And it's our job to make sure that Bush and the members of the Senate know that we will not stand for an extremist nominee to the Supreme Court.Make yourself heard, now if never before. Bush has promised to announce his nominee quickly and, should that nominee be in the William Pryor/Janice Rogers Brown/Priscilla Owen tradition of Judicial Extremism, then we need to make our objections heard just as quickly. We'll need to let the Democrats know that they must not back down this time.
The old Chinese curse is holding true for all of us these days- "May You Live in Interesting Times". But these times of interest are not the days of spectators and armchair quarterbacks. They're days of activism and of the common people, you and I, making our voices heard, making a difference in these times we're living in.