In Gonzales v Carhart 2007 the U. S. Supreme Court upheld a 2003 federal law outlawing partial birth abortion.

Let’s look at the majority on the high court that made that decision.

Chief Justice John Roberts (A Bush Jr. Appointee)

White
Male
Conservative
Catholic

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia

White
Male
Conservative
Catholic

Associate Justice Samuel Alito ( A Bush Jr. Appointee)

White
Male
Conservative
Catholic

Justice Clarence Thomas

Black
Male
Conservative
Catholic Convert

Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy

White
Male
Conservative to moderate
Catholic

In appointing Roberts and Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court, Bush has created a conservative Catholic majority on the Court. I realize that the Constitution has a provision forbidding religious tests for office. I also support the 1st Amendment freedom of religion clause, but I have some questions.

Questions for Debate:

1. Has Bush done the country a disservice by creating a Catholic majority on the Court? This is a 55% majority compared to 23% Catholics in the general population.

http://www.diocesephoenix.org/vocations/la...the_members.htm

2. If you were allowed to reconstruct the U. S. Supreme Court to reflect the population of the United States, how would you do it?

3. Should the court more accurately reflect our population, for instance four or five women compared to one, an openly gay person, a Hispanic, one or two atheists or agnostics?

Bonus question:

Will Bush’s appointments of Roberts and Alito be viewed as positive or negative twenty-five or so years from now when historians start to dissect Bush?

1. Has Bush done the country a disservice by creating a Catholic majority on the Court? This is a 55% majority compared to 23% Catholics in the general population.

By creating a Catholic majority? No. As there is no religious test for office, the simple fact that Roberts and Alito are Catholic doesn't make his choice of these individuals a disservice to the country. Bush isn't Catholic so it's not like he's even showing preference to his own religion in his choice.

2. If you were allowed to reconstruct the U. S. Supreme Court to reflect the population of the United States, how would you do it?

I don't know. I don't know that the Supreme Court should reflect the population of the United States. I'd be more concerned that Congress doesn't reflect the population.

3. Should the court more accurately reflect our population, for instance four or five women compared to one, an openly gay person, a Hispanic, one or two atheists or agnostics?

I don't feel that this is necessary.

1. Has Bush done the country a disservice by creating a Catholic majority on the Court? This is a 55% majority compared to 23% Catholics in the general population.
No, if anything, Bush has done a the country a favor by appointing justices who, probably as a result of their Catholicism, are more respectful of the value of "what has gone before", rather than being kneejerk progressive.

2. If you were allowed to reconstruct the U. S. Supreme Court to reflect the population of the United States, how would you do it?
Aside from using such an opportunity to dump Ruth Bader Ginsburg (what percentage of the US population are members of the ACLU? ) and replace her with Tammy Bruce , I wouldn't venture to engage in reconstructing the court on such a basis. Fidelity to the Constitution as written would be the basis I would use.

3. Should the court more accurately reflect our population, for instance four or five women compared to one, an openly gay person, a Hispanic, one or two atheists or agnostics?
No, it shouldn't. Such "diversity" rests upon the patently false notion that one's sex, religion, sexual preference and/or ethnicity are relevant to the analysis of our Constitution.

Bonus question:

Will Bush’s appointments of Roberts and Alito be viewed as positive or negative twenty-five or so years from now when historians start to dissect Bush?
25 years from now? "Historians" have been "dissecting" the Bush Presidency since November 2000! Now, if you want to say "when historians begin to bring some objectivity to their perspective in 25 years", that's a sensible question.

Its also one for which there is insufficient information to provide an answer.

I thought the perspective of 25 years was obvious enough that it didn't need to be qualified.

Since youjcan't answer, I guess you don't get any bonus points, whatever that might mean.

Edited to add:

When you say "Historians have been "dissecting" the Bush Presidency since November 2000," you are using the term "historian" rather loosely. Sure pundits have written pro and con books on Bush, but they are not historians. The news media dissects Bush daily - uh, that's their job, but it's history's first draft.

The historians who write definitive biographies will come later when more documents are available.

The problem is that this is a two part question.

-Is what Bush did wrong; stacking the courts in order to try and push through law his personal politics, thus violating the separation between the executive and judicial branches? Yes.

-Would any other president, Democrat or Conservative, in his position, have acted any differently? Probably not, no.


This is one of those ones that isn't really Bush's fault, he is guilty simply continuing an unfortunate tradition of politicising supreme court appointees. That tradition will not be broken until somebody changes the system, or a rare leader of genuine priinciple comes along.

No. These folks are there to interperate the Constitution and they are doing a fine job.

http://www.diocesephoenix.org/vocations/la...the_members.htm



Wouldn’t even try. See above.




No.



Negative by liberals – positive by conservatives. The court is now almost as conservative and the Marshall court was liberal.

1. Has Bush done the country a disservice by creating a Catholic majority on the Court? This is a 55% majority compared to 23% Catholics in the general population.

I don't see how we can conclude that given the "evidence" presented here. The religious affiliation of the Justices corresponds to what, exactly? That they are conservative? I hardly think that anyone who has done any research on the issue would conclude that being Catholic implies (let alone denotes) being a political conservative. In fact, the opposite is probably more true.

http://www.catholicvote.net/issues/additio...republicans.htm

Of all Catholics:
45% are ProLife. 53% are Pro Choice.
61% think abortion should be legal, 38% say it should be banned.
72% support stem cell research.
74% would rather give back the Bush tax cuts to improve SS and Medicare's financial position.
24% think there is a religious obligation in voting.
22% agree that Communion should be denied to those who support legal abortion. Only 20% if the person is a politician.

2. If you were allowed to reconstruct the U. S. Supreme Court to reflect the population of the United States, how would you do it?

I wouldn't. They idea is, frankly, a bit un-Constitutional, not to mention a bad idea overall. When the female Hispanic trilingual religiously conservative bisexual resigns, where will we find a clone to replace her?

3. Should the court more accurately reflect our population, for instance four or five women compared to one, an openly gay person, a Hispanic, one or two atheists or agnostics?

No. This idea is so badly mired in the idea of quotas it is barely worth responding to. Let's see, an estimated 5% of adults are homosexual. That's 1 out of 20. Sorry, not a big enough bloc to warrant a spot on the Court. 13% of the population is black. That's 1 out of 7 (approximately). But we have 9 spots. Where are we going to find a Justice that is 2/9ths black?

As for the last question, luckily I have never needed bonus points to ace anything...

1. The Supreme Court is more impacted by the political, not religious, affiliations of its members. What we are seeing here is a predominantly Catholic slant from the five Justices that made up the recent abortion ruling, but more importantly there is now a working majority of conservatives on given issues with Anthony Kennedy being the swing voter. I fully expect when the next affirmative action ruling comes down we will see another 5-4 split with Kennedy casting the deciding vote (most likely on the side of the conservatives based upon his previous rulings on AA cases).

2. I wouldn't reconstruct the U.S. Supreme Court to reflect the population of the United States and I don't think that changing the complexion of the Court means it becomes more representative. When Louis Brandeis became the first Jewish Justice selected in 1916 by Woodrow Wilson there was stiff opposition to his nomination. Who would doubt that much of the opposition was based upon Brandeis' religion? If one begins to treat the make-up of the high court to that of casting a beer commercial ("Get me one hip Black guy, One happy Hispanic guy, a nerdy Asian guy, a couple of slacker White guys and a hot blonde." ) are Justices being chosen because they are among the very best in the field or because they fit into some kind of goofy quota system? That is not a path the Supreme Court should go down.

3. Again--NO. If Clarence Thomas inherited "The Black Seat" that Thurgood Marshall held before him, and died tonight, should Bush feel compelled to replace him with another Black candidate? Because there have never been a Hispanic member on the Court should the next Justice be chosen to remedy that? In the history of the court there have been great justices, mediocre justices and terrible-to-incompetent justices. As long as women, Hispanics, atheists and other types receive a fair interview for Supreme Court vacancies, I look at their candidacy the same way as head coaches in the NFL and the problem qualified Blacks have faced; equal opportunity does not necessarily mean equal results.

Samuel Alito is going to be a disaster. There were far better candidates than him, but depending upon what happens in 2008 and what party takes control of the White House and Congress, we could see some departures from the bench. John Roberts has possibilities of becoming either great or a total failure as Chief Justice. Twenty-five years from now things will come into a clearer focus, but the early assessment is the jury is still out on Roberts. We'll get a better picture when this term is over to see if he is charting a certain course for the court.

What I would hope is we could see jurisprudence supplant ideology as the qualifier for elevation to the Supreme Court. I doubt that's going to happen.

This is a matter of political realities---a conservative President appointing conservative Justices. Take some small comfort BoF that those same political realities means it is unlikely Bush would be able to get a hardcore right-wing nominee to the court through a Democratic controlled Judiciary Committee.

Edited to add:



It doesn't appear that roberts or Alito are quite as open on some of these issues. Time will tell.


I see the current court majority as a "cookie cutter."

Although I doubt the court would ever have a five Baptist, five Methodist or five anything else, you could substitute the broader word "protestant" for "Catholic" for the five "cookie cutters" and I still wouldn't like it.



Bingo. I've thought about that and it's another "blessing," if a noted infidel can use that term, to extol the virtues of divided government.



What "interpretaion of the Constitution" means is another debate and whether or not the current justices are doing a fine job is up for grabs.



Did you, by chance, mean the Warren Court?

No. He's nominated who he believes to be the best candidates for the job, period.
I would nominate 9 people who have respect for the rule of law above their personal ideologies. If they were 9 Black, Jewish, Mutes that would be fine.
No, the court doesn't have to represent the people, it's loyalty is to the law. Find 9 individuals who are loyal to the law and you've got a Supreme Court. We shouldn't be in the business of having 9 racial or ethnic representatives on the Supreme Court because they aren't there to do anything but interpret the law.

CP

Be that as it may CP, but I don't think the "best" legal talent in this country lies in any one ethnic, gender, religious or ideology group.

I neurotic enough to dislike the current conservative court and rational enough to think that Bush could have found some equally qualified candidates that do not fit a "cookie cutter" mold.

My candidate for the seat Alito got was a Hispanic woman from the 9th circuit, Consuelo Maria Callahan, who, by the way, was a appointed by George W. Bush.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consuelo_Maria_Callahan

I don't believe any group has a monopoly on legal talent either, but I don't want the President to be in the business of looking for token minorities to fill into the Supreme Court. That said, I was dissapointed that the President didn't nominate Janice Rogers Brown [a black woman] to the SCOTUS, not because she was a black woman, but because she was a genius Constitutional scholar and a libertarian who would give the government no more power than it is enumerated. She was, in my opinion, the best candidate, if she were white, I'd say the same thing, either way the job should have been hers. Janice Rogers Brown

CP

Yes certainly – I like their “strict” interpretation of the constitution and you may disagree.




Yes – my error.