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Arrogant Judiciary Bullying Other Branches, Conservatives Suggest

by Bill Fancher and Jody Brown
April 11, 2005

(AgapePress) - Conservatives gathered in Washington, DC, over the weekend to put a spotlight on the dangers of judicial activism -- something they see as a growing crisis in the country's judiciary.

Over the past several years, numerous conservative and pro-family leaders -- among them Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Dr. Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association -- have railed against judges and judicial ruling that are apparently based on ideology instead of constitutional law. Also among those critics is Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, who was at the weekend conference.

 
Tony Perkins
Perkins says judicial activists in American have developed an arrogance that says they are the ultimate authority on all issues. That is not the way the nation's founding fathers set up the Judicial branch of the government, he says.

"Our founders created a system of checks and balances -- three branches of government -- where you have the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial," Perkins points out, "and the other two always having the opportunity to check the other."

Many judges have voiced their anger at Congress for asking for a re-examination of the Terri Schiavo case, an action that is clearly spelled out in Article Three of the Constitution. Some critics claim judicial activists just do not know what the Constitution says. Like Perkins, Howard Phillips of the Conservative Caucus sees an arrogant judiciary that bullies the other branches of government.

Phillips also watched that haughty attitude show forth in the recent Terri Schiavo matter. "The federal Constitution makes clear that the Legislature is primary, the Executive secondary, the Judiciary in third place," he says. "Yet the Judiciary, because of the cowardice and ignorance of people in the other two branches, was able to be dominant in this matter."

The U.S. Constitution only establishes the Supreme Court. All other courts have been created by congressional action and are subject to congressional oversight. Conferees at the gathering in the nation's capital said that oversight is something that needs to be exercised.

Filibuster's Primary Objective?
Maintaining the status quo of the judiciary appears to be the motivation behind Senate Democrats who have effectively stalemated many of President Bush's nominations to the federal bench. Gary Bauer of American Values says the debate over the Democratic-led filibuster against Bush's conservative and pro-life nominees is a basic issue of fairness.


Gary Bauer  
"The judicial nominees that are being held up by the filibuster have not been accused of any ethical problems, haven't cheated on their taxes. Nobody's accused them of anything inappropriate," he told The Washington Times recently. "The only think they've been accused of is sharing a philosophy of the president who nominated them."

Many of those nominees, say observers, have been subjected to a religious "litmus test" as their opponents have criticized them for their "deeply held beliefs" on moral issues. FRC's Tony Perkins wonders if any faithful Christian can be seen as qualified by liberals in the Senate.

"The secular ideology of the Senate liberals engaged in judicial filibusters is sweeping," he says. "Not only do they wish to wipe out any vestige of religious expression in the public square, but they also aim to make it impossible for people of religious and moral conviction to hold judicial office."

The Democratic leader in the Senate, Nevada's Harry Reid, has labeled the president's blocked nominees as extremists, and has threatened to effectively shut down Senate operations if the majority GOP attempts to change the rules governing continuation of the filibuster. A spokesperson for the Coalition for a Fair Judiciary suggests that Reid examine the effect such obstructionist tactics had on one of his former long-time Senate colleagues, Tom Daschle. That approach, says the Coalition's Kay Daly, led to Daschle's defeat last November.

"I understand Mr. Daschle has a lot of time on his hands to discuss such options," Daly told the Times.



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Judicial activism is a dangerous thing. The question is do conservatives really want a non-activist judiciary, or do they want a conservative activist judiciary that will spend the next 70 years undoing the liberal judicial activism of the last 70?