By David Harsanyi
March 05, 2020
‘If, then, the courts of justice are to be considered as
the bulwarks of a limited Constitution against legislative encroachments, this
consideration will afford a strong argument for the permanent tenure of
judicial offices,” argued Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 78.
If we ever needed a pristine example of why justices are
bestowed lifetime appointments and shielded from the vagaries of the electorate
and the intimidation tactics of unethical politicians, Chuck Schumer has now
provided us with one.
While speaking to pro-abortion protesters in front of the
Supreme Court today, the Senate minority leader threatened — there’s no other
way to put it — two sitting justices with repercussions if they ruled to uphold
a Louisiana law requiring abortionists to gain admitting privileges to
hospitals before offering their services to women:
I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want
to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the
price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful
decisions.
It’s conceivable that Schumer — who, like the rest of his
party, doesn’t have the slightest interest in protecting babies who’ve survive
botched abortions — can’t think of any good reason for hospital-admitting privileges.
But treating as an “undue burden” any laws that require abortion clinics to
provide basic medical facilities for women is just an example of the Democrats’
extremism on the issue. Threatening justices over the case is hysterical.
Moreover, Schumer’s thuggish attack on Kavanaugh and
Gorsuch is a transparent attempt to intimidate justices. And wow — a sitting
senator threatening an independent judiciary. Surely the champions of norms and
decency will be horrified by this development. When Donald Trump, rather
absurdly, demanded that Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg recuse
themselves from “Trump-related” Supreme Court cases because of their partisan
positions — and, yes Notorious RGB is openly partisan and anti-Trump — it was a
major national story. In this case, I suspect we’re going to hear a lot about a
general “coarsening” of discourse.
Whatever the case, this an unprecedented attack on a
justice of the Supreme Court. And by unprecedented, I mean that you
won’t be able to unearth a single instance in modern history of a member of
Congress threatening a justice — by name, no less — for ruling against his
wishes. Which is why, I imagine, Chief Justice John Roberts felt the need to
release this statement:
Justices know that criticism comes
with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort from the highest
levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous. All
Members of the Court will continue to do their job, without fear or favor, from
whatever quarter.
Sometimes, in highly charged debates over public policy,
the moment gets the better of person. It’s probably happened to all of us. Yet,
rather than walking back his statement, Schumer compounded the ugly behavior by
smearing the chief justice as a partisan ideologue, as well.
“For Justice Roberts to follow the right wing’s
deliberate misinterpretation of what Sen. Schumer said, while remaining silent
when President Trump attacked Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg last week, shows
Justice Roberts does not just call balls and strikes,” Schumer spokesman Justin
Goodman said in statement to USA Today. The senator meant only that
there would be a “political price Republicans will pay for putting them on the
court,” Goodman added.
First of all, is Schumer really arguing that being critical
of justices is tantamount to threatening them? If that’s the case, why,
during Obama’s State of the Union address in 2010, did Schumer stand and clap
for Obama’s norm-breaking attack on the Supreme Court justices who had upheld
the First Amendment in Citizens United? It seems clear that Obama was
attempting to manipulate court, as well, but at least he had the decency not to
sound like some wannabe Mafioso.
By accusing Roberts of misrepresenting his comments for
partisan reasons, Schumer (via his spokesman) is obviously trying to influence
the chief justice, as well. But he’s lying. Schumer’s initial statement
specifically and unequivocally named two justices — one of whom he and his
colleagues had already attempted to humiliate and defame. He was not calling
out the Republicans who put Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on the Court.
Schumer doesn’t have the power to follow through on any
threats, thankfully. His attack, like many less obvious ones, is just part of
the Left’s concerted effort to delegitimize the court, denigrate its justices,
and undermine the legality of its decisions. This isn’t surprising, since the
Constitution — and the jurists who are inclined to uphold it — is the biggest
impediment to the progressive agenda. So expect a lot more of this.
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