Matt Drudge reports today that Senator Chuck Schumer has no intention on preserving the comity of the upper chamber when George Bush nominates a replacement for Sandra Day O'Connor. Instead, he has joined his colleagues in the obstructionist camp to paint whomever Bush selects as a radical, regardless of their identity:

Senate Judiciary Committee member Chuck Schumer got busy plotting away on the cellphone aboard a Washington, DC-New York Amtrak -- plotting Democrat strategy for the upcoming Supreme Court battle.

Schumer promised a fight over whoever the President’s nominee was: “It's not about an individual judge… It's about how it affects the overall makeup of the court.”

The chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee was overheard on a long cellphone conversation with an unknown political ally, and the DRUDGE REPORT was there!

Schumer proudly declared: “We are contemplating how we are going to go to war over this.”

For those who spent the last few weeks thinking that the Gang of 14 had cleared the way for Supreme Court nominations, think again. As I predicted, no one in Harry Reid's caucus will let Bush simply select a nominee before ratcheting up the rhetoric. What's more, none of them ever intended to let the system work they way it should. They have always wanted to ensure that they can exert as much control as possible over any SCOTUS openings, regardless of whether they have to pervert the Constitution to do it.

Why? Put simply, their agenda will not sell to the American electorate. To use one example -- one to which, oddly, I don't have any particular opposition -- let's take gender-neutral marriage. The public overwhelmingly opposes the legalization of GNM, as eleven separate referendums in 2004 amply demonstrated. Instead of allowing the people to speak on this issue, however, the Left has taken the fight to the courts, trying to find activist judges who will impose GNM on a populace that rejects it even across partisan lines. The courts are only way that GNM activists can achieve their goals, and only if enough judges get appointed that legislate from the bench rather than just apply the laws as written.

If legislatures passed GNM, I would accept it; in fact, as I stated before and on other occasions on this blog, I don't oppose it now. But that remains an issue for legislatures, as the representatives of the people in the government, to determine. The Left doesn't trust representative government, and therefore has spent the last fifty years doing end runs around it and abusing the power of the judiciary.

This has politicized the judicial process to such a degree that we now have these circuses whenever appellate and SCOTUS jurists retire. If all sides would live by the Constitution and expect justices to do the same, the only issues germane to a confirmation process would be legal qualifications and judicial temperament, not political stances on public issues that belong in the realm of legislation. It's the ACLU, PFAW, and the Leftist activists that have created this environment of overwhelming partisanship for SCOTUS openings. Schumer and his colleagues in the Democratic caucus act as enablers and co-conspirators in ensuring that the judiciary remains adequately staffed with judges that abuse their power to impose laws as the robed high priests of the Republic, a role that the founders would have found abhorrent.

Perhaps instead of planning his march to the mattresses, Schumer should consider his pledge to defend the Constitution and the powers that rightly belong to the branch of the people -- the Legislature to which Schumer belongs.

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Tracked on July 7, 2005 6:26 AM