High Court Shows It Might Be Willing To Act Boldly

by Robert Barnes - January 22, 2010 - Washington Post

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and his conservative colleagues delivered a seismic jolt Thursday. They overturned two of the court's past decisions -- including one made as recently as six years ago -- to upend federal legislation that says corporations may not use their profits to support or oppose candidates and to declare unconstitutional a large portion of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act passed in 2002.

"This is obviously such an exceptionally dramatic, high-profile break with precedent," said Pamela Harris, executive director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown Law Center. "The question is, what will come next? Perhaps they have exhausted themselves on this one case, or it could have the opposite effect and be energizing. I really don't know which it will be."

Though I believe that this ruling is positive in protecting individual liberty, it is also annoying in that it enhances court power. For anyone sensitive to the growing judicial oligarchy of our nation's courts, that second aspect will certainly leave you worried.

The unwillingness of the liberal justices, and the Democrat Party, to stop trying to determine who gets to participate in our democratic elections however means that other concerns are probably best left for future battles. This outcome on balance is positive for a return to more individual freedom. That is good.

I was amused by the closing sentences of this writer's article, "But the reaction to the court's decision followed mostly partisan lines. And the court's familiar ideological split may have reinforced, warranted or not, the image the court finds most distasteful -- that its decisions are political as well." If the nine clowns think for a second that they are not practicing politics and find that impression distasteful, they are delusional.