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Judicial activists in the Supreme Court, By E.J. Dionne

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JamesAquila

Posted: Apr 1 2012, 10:58 AM

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QUOTE

Judicial activists in the Supreme Court

By E.J. Dionne

Three days of Supreme Court arguments over the health-care law demonstrated for all to see that conservative justices are prepared to act as an alternative legislature, diving deeply into policy details as if they were members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Senator, excuse me, Justice Samuel Alito quoted Congressional Budget Office figures on Tuesday to talk about the insurance costs of the young. On Wednesday, Chief Justice John Roberts sounded like the House whip in discussing whether parts of the law could stand if other parts fell. He noted that without various provisions, Congress �wouldn�t have been able to put together, cobble together, the votes to get it through.� Tell me again, was this a courtroom or a lobbyist�s office?

It fell to the court�s liberals � the so-called �judicial activists,� remember? � to remind their conservative brethren that legislative power is supposed to rest in our government�s elected branches.

Justice Stephen Breyer noted that some of the issues raised by opponents of the law were about �the merits of the bill,� a proper concern of Congress, not the courts. And in arguing for restraint, Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked what was wrong with leaving as much discretion as possible �in the hands of the people who should be fixing this, not us.� It was nice to be reminded that we�re a democracy, not a judicial dictatorship.

The conservative justices were obsessed with weird hypotheticals. If the federal government could make you buy health insurance, might it require you to buy broccoli, health club memberships, cellphones, burial services and cars? All of which have nothing to do with an uninsured person getting expensive treatment that others � often taxpayers � have to pay for.

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This is what conservative justices will do if they strike down or cripple the health-care law. And a court that gave us Bush v. Gore and Citizens United will prove conclusively that it sees no limits on its power, no need to defer to those elected to make our laws. A Supreme Court that is supposed to give us justice will instead deliver ideology.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/act...E2gS_story.html

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