Justice Ginsburg: Watchdog Plan ‘Scary’

Posted on May 4, 2006

Wow, over the past 24 hours we are getting a glimpse into the fears of two Supreme Court Justices, and they couldn’t be more opposite.

Justice Ginsburg:

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Tuesday that a Republican proposal in Congress to set up a watchdog over the federal courts is a “really scary idea.”

Ginsburg told a gathering of the American Bar Association that lawyers should stick up for judges when they are criticized by congressional leaders.

“My sense now is that the judiciary is under assault in a way that I haven’t seen before,” she said.

As an example, she mentioned proposals by senior Republicans who want an inspector general to police judges’ acceptance of free trips or their possible financial interests with groups that could appear before them.

“It sounds to me very much like the Soviet Union was …. That’s a really scary idea,” said Ginsburg, who was put on the court by President Clinton and is one of its liberal members. Ginsburg said her confirmation hearings in 1993, and those the following year for Justice Stephen Breyer, were long but friendly. “That bipartisan spirit has broken down,” she said.

Right, because there would be no reason a former ACLU board member might show favoritism to any certain special interest group, especially since they police themselves.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said last week that the judiciary wasn’t doing enough policing of itself. His plan would create an inspector general to oversee federal courts including the Supreme Court. The inspector general would be directed to report any judicial misconduct to the Justice Department.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., has proposed a separate plan to cover lower federal courts only.

Ginsburg said her concerns were about the legislative branch setting up a so-called guardian for the judicial branch. She also said there have been discussions in Congress about limiting the scope of courts.

Apparently, Ginsburg has never heard of “checks and balances”, and the fact that it is the legislative branch’s job to keep an eye on the judicial branch.

Contrast Ginsburg’s fear with that of Scalia.

.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia complained to a St. Louis audience Wednesday that judges are deciding moral issues that ought to be left up to the public through the political process.

Scalia, viewed as one of the most conservative members of the high court, criticized Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court opinion that upheld abortion rights, saying it failed to arrive at a decision about when life begins. That issue is central to the case, he said, and is something about which judges “know no more . . . than the rest of us.”

Scalia said unelected judges are taking the power to decide moral questions that ought to be resolved by the people, and warned against the specter of “government by judicial aristocracy.”

The difference between these two Supreme Court Justices’ fears are quite stark. Of course, as I stated earlier, my fear sides more with Scalia and our founders.

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One Response to “Justice Ginsburg: Watchdog Plan ‘Scary’”

kerwin_brown on May 5th, 2006 1:48 am

I like the ideal of Cogress setting up an executive branch to keep an eye on the Justice Branch. I alwaay wondered if Justice Blackmun’s decision in Roe v. Wade helped his daughter get a job with Planned Parenthood.