Some “balls and strikes”

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I have only been able to catch bits and pieces of the opening statements by Senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee on the first day of confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

The best I have heard so far has been by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a former prosecutor, who denounced Supreme Court Justice John Roberts’ disingenuous umpire theory of judging — his oft-quoted statement that the role of a judge is just to call “balls and strikes” as he sees them — with a harsh critique of what’s turned out to be remarkable “judicial activism” by the conservative majority led by Roberts on the court.

H/t to The Washington Independent for the quick transcript:

The “umpire” analogy is belied by Chief Justice Roberts, though he cast himself as an “umpire” during his confirmation hearings. Jeffrey Toobin, a well-respected legal commentator, has recently reported that “[i]n every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff.” Some umpire. And is it a coincidence that this pattern, to continue Toobin’s quote, “has served the interests, and reflected the values of the contemporary Republican party”? Some coincidence.

For all the talk of “modesty” and “restraint,” the right wing Justices of the Court have a striking record of ignoring precedent, overturning congressional statutes, limiting constitutional protections, and discovering new constitutional rights: the infamous Ledbetter decision, for instance; the Louisville and Seattle integration cases, for example; the first limitation on Roe v. Wade that outright disregards the woman’s health and safety; and the DC Heller decision, discovering a constitutional right to own guns that the Court had not previously noticed in 220 years. Over and over, news reporting discusses “fundamental changes in the law” wrought by the Roberts Court’s right wing flank. The Roberts Court has not lived up to the promises of modesty or humility made when President Bush nominated Justices Roberts and Alito.

Some “balls and strikes.”

E.J. Dionne, Jr. has an excellent opinion today at the Washington Post Sotomayor's Critics Are the Radicals regarding the conservative "judicial activism" of the Roberts Court.

The good folks at Media Matters breaks down the Myths and falsehoods surrounding the Sotomayor nomination