Does Judicial Activism Beget Judicial Activism?

A few related links:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005871

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/10/18/SUPREMES.TMP

The talk of the political circles this week (aside from the state of the Democratic Party) is the US Supreme Court. Speculation is flying about who will be the next Chief Justice and whether or not President Bush will appoint right-wing judges to the nations highest court.

Let me be clear that I think judicial activism hurts our democracy. The judicial branch of the US government is to act as a check on the other branches by interpreting the law. We have a whole branch of government that's responsible for making law, and that body was designed to be very closely tied to public opinion via frequent elections, not lifetime appointments as is the case with the courts.

The American political Left has in recent decades been seen as the willing beneficiary of judicial activism. Whether or not this is true is a question for people much better informed and well researched than I (for example, Tom Sowell), but I think it's safe to say that this is a common perception.

The chatter in political circles now concerns whether the 2004 election results mean the country wants President Bush to appoint more conservative judges to counteract this liberal activism with an equal serving of conservative activism, hoping it will move the courts back toward the center and closer to objectivity.

I think this would be a huge mistake.

I do not support judicial activism in any form. If it is indeed true that some judges are letting their own politicial beliefs or the pressure of partisan forces influence the decisions they render, these judges are not doing what we've hired them to do, which is to interpret the law and rule on its constitutionality. Folks who want to make laws should run for Congress, not sit on the bench.

Those criteria do not discriminate between liberal and conservative judicial activists. A judge who rules based on conservative partisan motives is just as guilty of abusing his position as his liberal counterpart.

I propose that an attempt to balance liberal judicial activism by putting conservative judges on the bench will only serve to perpetuate the phenomenon that they are trying to stifle. Conservatives going on the offensive makes it NECESSARY for liberals to counter with activism of their own. Activism begets activism. This has the overall effect of enhancing an adversarial atmosphere in the judiciary where none should exist.

What we need is a move away from political polarization and toward genuine neutrality and objectivity. President Bush should continue to be the bold leader he has proven himself to be by resiting the urge toward conservatism in his Supreme Court appointments and instead seeking the most neutral, objective, and non-politically motivated judges he can find for those positions.

We, as voters and citizens, should make it clear to our elected leaders that the role they play in judicial activism is not helping them gain our support. If they're not helping to ensure the objectivity of Federal judges, they're simply not doing what we hired them to do.

(Here's a nice backgroud piece on the judiciary's role in the evolution of "separation of church and state)