July 06, 2005

Gonzalez - 0 Kozinski - 2

Bill Quick at Daily Pundit offers another good reason to not support Gonzalez for a Supreme Court nomination...He can never support a Supreme Court nominee who thinks that the Second Amendment doesn't exist. Quick continues...

I further expect that if Bush does nominate Gonzales and is successful in pushing him through the confirmation process before October, he will seal the biggest election setback for the Republicans in decades. I know I won't be working hard to elect anybody from the "conservative" gun-grabber party. Or the liberal gun-grabber party, either.

Say Uncle added the following:

Well, a crappy, politically-motivated AG would only be a crappy, politically-motivated judge.

Indeed. However, we wouldn't have that problem if my choice for the Supreme Court was nominated.

In 2003, the 9th Circuit Court refused an en banc hearing on a case with a Second Amendment challenge (Silveira v. Lockyer). Justice Kozinski wrote a scorching dissent to this decision, and I don't think anyone could have made any better argument for the Second Amendment:

It is wrong to use some constitutional provisions as springboards for major social change while treating others like senile relatives to be cooped up in a nursing home until they quit annoying us. As guardians of the Constitution, we must be consistent in interpreting its provisions. If we adopt a jurisprudence sympathetic to individual rights, we must give broad compass to all constitutional provisions that protect individuals from tyranny. If we take a more statist approach, we must give all such provisions narrow scope. Expanding some to gargantuan proportions while discarding others like a crumpled gum wrapper is not faithfully applying the Constitution; it's using our power as federal judges to constitutionalize our personal preferences.

Read the entire dissent...it's required reading no matter where you stand on the Second Amendment.

More: Glen Dean asked if I would like Justice Janice Rogers Brown as a possible nominee. My answer: Maybe. She seems to have a good, Constitutionalist grounding, and she would be much better than Gonzalez...but not as good as Kozinski. She could be a reasonable compromise...at least to me.

Comments:

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You were right, that was an amazing read. But there's way too much common sense in it for the SCOTUS.

Posted by: Jakester at July 6, 2005 10:15 AM