[extropy-chat] Re: SCOTUS rulings and replacements

[Brett Paatsch]

Joseph Bloch wrote:

[I wrote]
>> I'm boning up my Australian-based understanding of the
>> SCOTUS, now that Sandra Day O Connor has retired and
>> President G W B will get a shot at first her replacement and
>> then likely, pretty soon given his health and age, Rehquirst's) ?
>
>
> It's more than a "shot"; GWB will nominate a replacement, and the Senate 
> judiciary committee will vote on him or her. If that nominee is voted 
> down, GWB will name another, and so on. Ditto for a replacement for 
> Rehnqist, although I personally think he won't retire until a replacement 
> for O'Connor has been confirmed. Either way, President Bush nominates the 
> successor; if his first choice isn't confirmed, he just keeps nominating 
> someone until they are confirmed.

Does the judiciary committee have to have grounds for voting a
nomination down, or it is simply that as both the nomination and the
voting down of it (potentially) will take place transparently with the
American public watching (so neither side wants to be seen to be
blatantly self serving)?

I don't really get what the judiciary committee does in relation to
what the Senate does. Does the judiciary committee perhaps conduct
inquiries for a time until say the President hurrumphs and says "dammit
stop delaying, put my nominee to the vote of the Senate and lets
see if we can smoke out some anti-voter filibusterers," or what?

> The REAL question is whether President Bush's candidate will be so 
> conservative as to trigger a showdown with a Democrat filibuster, or 
> moderate enough to avoid it and still not disaffect his conservative base. 
> We won't know that until July 8th, when he gets back from the G8 Summit 
> and makes his nominee known.

That is certainly interesting.  It is just the Senate that votes though 
isn't
it?

(I do realise that I could find this stuff out myself by Googling, and
probably will, but I thought if some US'ians saw how much this stuff
interests some of us that don't even live there, then they might discover
an interest in their own systems as well.  The Supreme Court is one
of the real hubs of civilizing, or otherwise, power not just in the US
but in the world.  It may be on a par with, or at more likely at present
given the might of the US, even more powerful than the UN Security
Council).

>> Also, when reading about possible replacement justices I see that
>> liberal and conservative are talked about as if those categories
>>  are opposites. Is that the case in the US?
>
>
> Indeed it is. In popular parlance (in the context of the Federal 
> judiciary), liberal tends to mean willing to freely interpret the 
> Constitution according to modern needs and mores (the "living 
> Constitution"), while conservative means tending to a much stricter and 
> more literal reading of the Constitution as written ("original intent").
>
> Naturally, there is a lot of gray between those two poles, and a lot of 
> specific implications in case-law dependent on both labels (to use as an 
> example the hot-button issue that will certainly define the battle; 
> conservatives generally don't recognize the "right to privacy" that Roe v. 
> Wade established which made state prohibition of abortion 
> unconstitutional, while liberals see it as a natural consequence of the 
> 10th Amendment).
>
> With the political climate in Washington so polarized, so partisan, and so 
> vicious (on both sides), the confirmation of O'Connor's replacement 
> promises to be great political theater any way it goes.
>
> Hope that helps.

Thanks

Brett Paatsch

PS: Mike, your post mentions the term "constructionist" what do you mean
by that term, is it a commonly used classification, and if so, what is its
opposite? Who on the current court for instance would you regard
as constructionists and the opposite to constructionists?