November 6, 2006, - 1:54 pm
Go Away!: Liberal Ex-Justice O’Connor Whines About Ballot Measures to Rein in Judges
By Debbie Schlussel
Remember Sandra Day O’Connor? We’d like to forget the ex-Supreme Court Justice, a liberal who was nothing more than a Reagan affirmative action appointee (because she was a woman). And, besides, she set this bad trend of pretentious female Justices with three names: Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Rosie O’Donnell Carpenter, Hillary Rodham Clinton, etc. Well, thankfully the last two will never be on the Court. But you get our drift.
Unfortunately, not content to ride off into the sunset, O’Connor keeps popping up. And spouting off. Today’s edition of the Sandy O’Connor Ex-files is about the elections. She’s upset that judges are under growing political attack:
Unhappiness with judges today is at a very intense level,
she told a gathering of state judges from around the country, Friday.
Well, guess what? Judges are increasingly political and activist–just like she was. So, they deserve to be under political attack.
O’Connor is dour over an interesting initiative on Tomorrow’s South Dakota ballot, the “Jail 4 Judges” initiative, which would create a citizens’ grand jury that could authorize lawsuits or criminal prosecutions against judges bassed on their rulings. She’s also whining about Colorado’s ballot initiative that would term-limit Superme Court Justices to 10 years in office
While we oppose any idea that expands the litigation explosion and lawsuit abuse, the “Jail 4 Judges” measure is an interesting idea, especially in a day and age where many states have checks and balances, including term limits, on every other branch of government, but the judiciary is usually for life, because lawyers are wont to run against their colleagues and lose (having to go before them in court afterward and likely prejudicing their clients). Judges have become increasingly imperious, arbitrary, and activist in their decisions, and there is no way to rein it in.
We do favor the term limits idea, and would like to see it applied to judges at the trial court level, too. The idea of judges for life is passe and not ideal to getting real justice.
It figures a lib dinosaur like O’Connor doesn’t want reform over our judicial process at the state level.
Tags: Colorado, Connor Well, Connor Whines, Debbie Schlussel Remember, Donnell Carpenter, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Jail 4, Jane Fonda, Maria Shriver, Rosie O'Donnell, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sandra Day O'Connor, South Dakota, Supreme Court Justice
I’m with King Henry VI, as William Shakespeare put it.
Thee_Bruno on November 6, 2006 at 2:31 pm