This morning the Supreme Court issued a decision on the Voting Rights Act that struck down Section 4 which provided for constitutional reviews of voting practices in jurisdictions where there has been a history of discrimination. As might be expected, opinions began flying around as soon as the news hit the wires. Here are some of the views expressed by Republicans and other conservative figures:
- Mitt Romney: Today, unelected judges cast aside the will of the people.
- Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO): Today, the decision of unelected judges to overturn the will of the people … demonstrates the lengths that unelected judges will go to substitute their own worldview for the wisdom of the American people.
- Sen. Jeff Sessions: This ‘Washington-knows-best’ mentality is evident in all branches of government, but is especially troublesome in the judiciary, where unelected judges have twisted the words of our Constitution to advance their own political, economic, and social agendas.
- Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL): I’m appalled that unelected judges have irresponsibly decided to legislate from the bench and overturn the will of the people.
- George W. Bush: This concept of a “living Constitution” gives unelected judges wide latitude in creating new laws and policies without accountability to the people.
- Thomas Sowell: Unelected judges can cut the voters out of the loop and decree liberal dogma as the law of the land.
- Laura Ingraham: We don’t want to be micromanaged by some unelected judge or some unelected bureaucrat on the international or national level.
- Gov. Rick Perry: [The American people are] fed up with unelected judges.
- Pat Robertson: We are under the tyranny of a nonelected oligarchy. Just think, five unelected men and women who serve for life can change the moral fabric of our nation and take away the protections which our elected legislators have wisely put in place.
- Robert Bork: We are increasingly governed not by law or elected representatives but by an unelected, unrepresentative, unaccountable committee of lawyers applying no will but their own.
- Sen. Orrin Hatch: A small minority and their judicial activist allies are seeking to usurp the will of the people … Ultimately, the American people, not unelected judges, should decide policy on critical social issues such as this one.
- Glenn Beck: Even if you agree that the role of government is to take wealth from one to another, should it be the role of unelected judges and justices that do this?
- Justice Antonin Scalia: Value-laden decisions such as that should be made by an entire society … not by nine unelected judges.
If you haven’t already figured it out, these are not responses to today’s decision on the Voting Rights Act. These opinions were expressed following other legal cases where the rulings were contrary to the wishes of these conservative hypocrites. If they had any intellectual integrity, they would be joining liberals who are disappointed with today’s ruling.
When a decision like today’s is handed down, the wingnuts are ecstatic that our judicial branch upheld the rule of law and preserved democracy and liberty. But when the courts rule against them the judiciary is filled with collectivist tyrants who despise freedom and dismiss the people’s will. This demonstration of Judicial Bipolar Disorder is a sad commentary on the state of modern governing. Let’s hope that science can find a cure before too many more suffer from this plague. It would also help if the sufferers believed in science.
No no no. It’s only Unelected Judges when they do things to help the Poor or those with more melanin. When the Judges declare Undying Corporate Monsters to be Human or that Voting is restricted to White LandOwners in accordance with the Constitution then it is justice!
Also Strict Originalists argued that times have changed, odd that…
So F***ing What? This is the nature of partisan politics. Surely, the opposite of your argument is also true. More germane would be political reaction to today’s SCOTUS ruling by those who disagree with it, but praised SCOTUS when it, including Chief Justice John Roberts, voted that Obamacare was consitutional.