Litigation

Obama Hits ?Conservative? Judicial Activism

By Peter Hardin

President Obama has a beef about some courts: They are not giving the right deference to lawmakers’ decisions.

The president, who is deciding upon a successor to Justice John Paul Stevens, shared some of his thinking with reporters aboard Air Force One this week, according to an Associated Press article. It was headlined, “Obama warns of a ‘conservative’ judicial activism.”

Obama said some judges ignore the will of Congress and the democratic process. Rather than let the political process fix problems, they impose judicial answers, he said.

“In the ’60s and ’70s, the feeling was, is that liberals were guilty of that kind of approach,” Obama said. “What you’re now seeing, I think, is a conservative jurisprudence that oftentimes makes the same error.”

When Congress and state legislatures pass laws, judges ought to presume they should get “some deference as long as core constitutional values are observed,” he added.

In new reports about his Supreme Court search, the Los Angeles Times examined the opinions of three leading potential nominees on the use of presidential power, and in Newsweek, five experts wrote posts presenting the cases for their favorites.

In the Room for Debate blog of the New York Times, experts offer their views on what criteria Obama should use in the selection.

To learn more about potential nominees, White House and opposition strategies, and Obama’s criteria, check out other Gavel Grab posts or visit Justice at Stake’s “Replacing Justice Stevens” page.

Full post as published by The Gavel on April 29, 2010 (boomark / email).