Judiciary

Focus on the Family is getting involved in House and Senate races in Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas, sending out scorecards in which Republican candidates are praised for their “consistently pro-life and pro-family records” and the Democrats are blasted for having “taken audaciously liberal positions – particularly on life and marriage.” 

The text of all the mailers are more or less the same, with the exception of the paragraphs about the specific candidates – here is the text of the one targeting the Minnesota Senate Race [PDF]:

It’s not every day that individuals find themselves in a position to significantly impact the direction of an entire nation, but that’s exactly where you are today. As a Minnesota voter, you are right in the middle of one of the most important and closely watched Senate races in the country.

The stakes in this contest could not be higher. If Barack Obama wins the White House—a very real possibility—the U.S. Senate will be the last defense against his liberal agenda on abortion and marriage. Sen. Obama has already promised to support the Freedom of Choice Act, which would overturn every pro-life law on abortion in the nation. He has also pledged to abolish the Defense of Marriage Act and to allow open homosexuality in our military. The only hope of stopping this radical onslaught will be a strong showing of commonsense conservatives in the Senate.

A conservative Senate will be no less important under a McCain presidency. If John McCain should emerge victorious in November, he’ll need every Senate vote he can get to confirm Supreme Court judges who will uphold the Constitution and restore sanity to our courts.

That’s why Minnesota’s Senate race is so critical. The contrast between the candidates is sharp. Norm Coleman has maintained a stellar pro-life record and a generally pro-family record in the U.S. Senate. Al Franken, on the other hand, has not only taken strikingly liberal positions since returning to Minnesota, but his comedic record in New York is an embarrassment to those who
care about family values.

Please take a careful look at the issue checklist to the right. It contains details regarding the candidates’ stands on life, marriage and the judiciary, as well as insights on other issues that are important to families—such as gas prices and the threat of higher taxes.

Furthermore, Focus has also customized each mailing … seemingly using backdrops leftover from the 1970’s:

Buried in the Alaska Right to Life’s January 2008 newsletter - after the endorsement of Mike Huckabee and before the sign-up sheet for protesting clinics and driving the “Truth Truck” – is an article entitled “For Pro-Lifers Only” in which former Alaska Right to Life president and current Alaskan Independence Party candidate Bob Bird railed against the idea that presidents and legislators where in any way obligated to obey Supreme Court rulings:

Pro-lifers, start making some REAL political headway. Ask your pro-life governor to encourage the state to protect unborn human life, and DARE the federal courts to strike it down … And don’t you ever, EVER permit any pro-life presidential candidate to repeat Ronald Reagan’s famous statement, made in inexcusable ignorance: “Well, my oath of office requires me to enforce all Supreme Court decisions, even those I don’t agree with.” Rubbish.

Bird even blasts those, such as Gov. Sarah Palin, who believe that the best way to overturn Roe vs. Wade and restrict abortion is by reshaping the judiciary – something she apparently asked members of Alaska Right to Life to help her do when she addressed the organization’s “Proudly Pro-Life Banquet” in 2007:

Governor Sarah Palin, a pro-life stalwart every year since she entered the political scene, gave an encouraging speech for the pro-lifers in attendance at the Hotel Captain Cook for the 2008 “Proudly Pro-Life Banquet”. She asked for public support in her efforts to reshape the judiciary, an extremely complex and convoluted process that involves a screening board . . . a screening board that once thought Alaska Right to Life founder Wayne Anthony Ross to be too extreme!

The proceeds from the dinner, where Palin apparently shared the stage with Alveda King, were to be applied toward “the educational endeavors of Alaska Right to Life, including: the pro-life television ads, the G.A.P (Genocide Awareness Project) and the truth truck.”

The Right certainly has not been shy about voicing its opposition to the prospect of John McCain naming Joe Lieberman as his running mate.  But now some are taking a more conciliatory approach, announcing that Lieberman will be an acceptable VP pick ... provided that he agrees to be nothing but a figurehead and helps the Right get some judges confirmed:

Some conservative activists, who abhor the idea of a Lieberman choice, are being pro-active. One is Curt Levey, who advocates for conservative judicial nominations. In an preemptive email sent Thursday, Levey said that if Lieberman is the choice, his group, the Committee for Justice, asks he make several pledges:

Republicans are concerned about Lieberman's pro-choice stance and his weak record on judges. Since the abortion issue is almost entirely in the hands of the courts, Sen. Lieberman, if selected, could likely deflect much of the inevitable conservative criticism by making the following three pledges regarding judicial appointments:

1) he will play no role in picking judicial nominees in a McCain Administration,

2) he will not run for president in the future (and thus will never nominate judges himself),

3) he will caucus with Senate Republicans for the remainder of the year, allowing Republicans to demand a Senate reorganization like the one that followed Sen. Jeffords' 2001 defection from the GOP. That would make Arlen Specter chairman of the Judiciary Committee and Mitch McConnell Majority Leader, likely resulting in the confirmation of four pending appeals court nominees to the all-important Fourth and D.C. Circuits. Senate Democrats would be unwilling to risk the fate of Tom Daschle by filibustering nominees so close to an election.

Rob Schenck is not exactly a household name – in fact, he’s barely known even to those who monitor the Religious Right, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a history of influence with member of Congress and the right-wing movement.

We’ve been writing about Schenck for awhile now, primarily in the context of his crusade to expose the fact that Barack Obama might really be a Muslim infidel … and even if he’s not, his Christian faith is “woefully deficient,” as well as his reportedly successful efforts to sneak into the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing room and anoint the chairs with oil before Samuel Alito's confirmation hearings.

While Schenck might not be a right-wing powerbroker, he is something of a name dropper as this video check-in from earlier in the week demonstrates in which he reports that he’s on his way to Utah to join Sen. Orrin Hatch for a golf tournament before meeting up with Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice.  

None of this is particularly relevant or groundbreaking and we probably wouldn’t even bother mentioning it were it not for the announcement at the end that he will be attending and providing commentary for both the Democratic and Republican conventions on behalf of National Public Radio:

Schenck released a statement today confirming that he “will travel to Denver on Saturday, August 23, to observe and comment on the Democratic National Convention and surrounding events” but makes no mention of NPR.  

Is Schenck really going to be providing commentary for NPR on the Democratic Convention?  If so, did NPR bother to do any research on just who they were bringing on-board?

During the early 1990s … [Schenck] was arrested a dozen times during protests outside women's health clinics and abortion doctors' homes, and is renowned for outrageous publicity stunts, including dangling an aborted fetus in Bill Clinton's face outside the 1992 Democratic National Convention. With former Elim classmate Randall Terry, Schenck helped start Operation Rescue, a hardline anti-abortion group that embraced "direct action" in an effort to shut down reproductive health clinics and prevent doctors from practicing abortion.

Schenck, along with his twin brother Paul, have a long history of militant anti-abortion activism and first came to fame by targeting local doctor Barnett Slepian who was, in 1998, assassinated by an anti-abortion activist:

BOOK EXAMINES SCHENCKS' ROLE IN SLEPIAN CASE

25 October 2000

Buffalo News

Two years after Dr. Barnett A. Slepian's assassination, a new book written by a former local pro-life activist raises the question of whether the Schenck twins played an indirect role in singling out Slepian as a potential target for violence.

Author Jerry Reiter, a former member of the Town of Tonawanda church led by the Revs. Paul and Robert Schenck, never accuses the twin brothers of being involved in any murder plot or the harboring of the killer.

But in his book, "Live From the Gates of Hell," Reiter writes that his former pastors brought national Operation Rescue leaders here for protests outside the same home where Slepian later was killed.

The author questions how "an obscure physician from a midsize city like Buffalo" wound up on a national short list of targeted abortion providers.

"It was impossible to say with certainty who had put Slepian on the secret list, but it was possible that the national leadership would not have known about Slepian at all if it had not been for Rob and Paul Schenck," Reiter writes. "They were the first to choose him as a target for anti-abortion protesters."

...

Reiter writes that he was shocked when Robert Schenck told him that neither brother had heard of James C. Kopp before the FBI announced him as a suspect in Slepian's murder. The Schencks and Kopp had been arrested at demonstrations in the same cities.

Just last week we were noting that the recent surge of support among Religious Right leaders for John McCain seemed to hinge largely on his willingness to follow their advice and name Mike Huckabee as his running mate.  But as decision-time nears and the campaign begins airing lists of candidates which don’t include Huckabee, these right-wing leaders sprung into action to, once again, make their opposition known to Mitt Romney, the presumed front-runner:   

Prominent evangelical leaders are warning Sen. John McCain against picking former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as his running mate, saying their troops will abandon the Republican ticket on Election Day if that happens.

They say Mr. Romney lacks trust on issues such as outlawing abortion and opposing same-sex marriage and because he is a Mormon. Opposition is particularly powerful among those who supported former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in the Republican presidential primaries earlier this year.

"McCain and Romney would be like oil and water," said evangelical novelist Tim LaHaye, who supported Mr. Huckabee. "We aren't against Mormonism, but Romney is not a thoroughgoing evangelical and his flip-flopping on issues is understandable in a liberal state like Massachusetts, but our people won't understand that."

…

David Barton, a former vice president of the Republican Party of Texas, said, "The key for Mr. McCain is to pick someone who opposes abortion but doesn't alienate any part of the general Republican voting coalition" as Mr. Romney does.

Longtime social-conservative leaders such as Phyllis Schlafly, Phil Burress, Donald P. Hodel and Mathew Staver said earlier this month that they can rally their voters around Mr. McCain largely on the issues of abortion and the judiciary, as long as they are confident that the vice-presidential candidate is pro-life. They are skeptical about Mr. Romney's views.

Mr. Barton, founder of the national pro-life group WallBuilders, said the downside for picking either Mr. Romney or Mr. Huckabee is that evangelicals still would vote for Mr. McCain on Nov. 4 - given the alternative of Mr. Obama - but not work as hard organizing and getting out the vote.

"Romney would bring to the ticket as much enthusiasm from supporters as Huckabee would bring, but Romney's would be from fiscal conservatives and Huckabee's would be evangelicals," he said.

Of course, Barton and just about every other person mentioned in this article just so happened to sign on to the Colorado letter that essentially warned McCain that he’d better pick Huckabee or else, so it is not as if they are disinterested observers. 

Barton’s suggestion that Romney would generate a lot of excitement among fiscal conservatives is a little suspect given that the best that organizations like Club for Growth could say about him was that they were “reasonably optimistic that [he] would generally advocate a pro-growth agenda."  It’s laughable to think that Romney would match among fiscal conservatives the rabid enthusiasm that Huckabee has had throughout the process from Religious Right leaders.    

Even so, what Barton and the other Religious Right leaders quoted in the article seem to be doing is daring McCain to pick a side:  us or them; bringing to a head a clash between social and fiscal conservatives that has been brewing ever since Republicans lost control of Congress back in 2006.

Details continue to emerge about the meeting last week in Colorado where a large group right-wing leaders gathered and decided to back John McCain, with David Barton telling The Brody File that more than 90% in attendance agreed to support McCain primarily because they abhor Barack Obama and, as we noted yesterday, are really concerned about the future of the Supreme Court :

There were 83 state and national leaders in the room from all over the country. They included heavyweights Phyllis Schlafly, Tim and Beverly LaHaye, Phil Burress, Mat Staver and representatives from Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America and the American Family Association.

David Barton, President of the conservative WallBuilders group was there too. I spoke with him about the meeting and he tells me roughly 75 of the 83 were on board for McCain at the end of the meeting.  

…

They don't want Barack Obama picking Supreme Court judges. That's why the judges issue is very important to this group and they believe McCain will be there on judges. They plan to let their supporters know about it. The "base" may be mobilizing very soon.

Charisma Magazine also provide some inside details, such as the fact that Mike Huckabee’s daughter Sarah was reportedly in attendance and that McCain has apparently been meeting with militant anti-abortion activist Alveda King, which makes sense seeing as she’s been supporting him for months.   

But the culmination of the meeting was the agreement by those in attendance to sign on to something called the “Declaration of American Values” put together by Mat Staver and David Barton.  If this sounds familiar, it is probably because it is a lot like the Values Voters’ Contract With Congress that a similar group of right-wing activists unveiled heading into the 2006 election.  The primary difference between the two is that the new declaration has dropped the laundry list of legislation they wanted to see passed that made up the bulk of the Values Voters’ Contract in favor of vague language about the “sanctity of human life” and the importance of securing our “national sovereignty and domestic tranquility” … almost as if they don’t anticipate that their legislative agenda has any chance of moving forward in the next Congress:  

According to Politico, the Right is warming to John McCain’s far-right stance on judicial appointments, and with the 5-4 decisions that closed out the Supreme Court’s term, we can see the outline of McCain’s and the Right’s campaign to get the base to turn out in November on the issue of judges.

Last month’s Supreme Court decision on habeas corpus was likened by the Right a “white flag of surrender” that would cause “more Americans to be killed”; Fred Thompson, a judicial advisor to John McCain, wrote that the “remedy” was for “concerned citizens to turn out on Election Day to elect a new president.”

The more recent decision overturning D.C.’s gun ban inspired Ted Nugent to write in Human Events that “the 5-4 ruling is another painful example” of “a divisive culture war raging on, and four supreme justices frighteningly disconnected from the heart and soul of America.” Michael Reagan warned that the majority “will vanish if the liberals manage to elect Barack Obama and give his party sufficient control of Congress to guarantee that future Court vacancies will be filled with activist liberal justices who will turn the Constitution upside down.”

The Family Research Council called the Second Amendment case “a reminder for voters of just how important the elections are this fall.”

The next President is likely to name 2-3 Supreme Court justices, who will be examining the constitutionality of a variety of laws for the next few decades. Life, marriage, and religious freedom are all issues that are likely to land in front of the Supreme Court. … For fiscal, social, and national defense conservatives, judges are one issue that brings all conservatives together.

According to the Weekly Standard, a case restricting capital punishment to murderers and not rapists of children demonstrated “that the fight to turn the Court from a capricious and imperious vanguard of liberalism into an impassive umpire is far from over.” The Standard’s Matthew Continetti advised McCain to “take this opportunity to explain how his judicial philosophy differs from Obama's, and why it matters.” A National Review editorial similarly responded, “Too many of our justices are evolving away from democracy. Let’s not elect a president who will encourage them — and appoint more of them.”

Traditional Values Coalition’s Lou Sheldon wrote that the death penalty case and the habeas corpus decision “are perfect examples showing why it’s important that Americans choose the right person to assume the Presidency in January 2009.”

The person who becomes President and Commander-in-Chief of our Armed Forces will likely have to replace Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, and Souter – all liberals who use their power to impose their leftist ideology upon all Americans. …

If we fail to put a man into the Oval Office who understands judicial restraint and the rule of law, our legal system will be set back 30 years. This is especially true if a liberal President appoints young liberals to the Court and fills up the federal judiciary with more radical leftist judges.

Finally, there’s the 5-4 decision overturning the “Millionaire’s Amendment,” a part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that lifted contribution limits for politicians facing self-funded opponents. Despite McCain’s role in originally passing the law, McCain supporter Hans von Spakovsky wrote that the narrow ruling “graphically illustrates just how important the next president's appointments to the Supreme Court will be to preserving our First Amendment rights in the political arena.”

“[G]iven the number of Supreme Court appointments a Democratic president will be able to make, an Obama victory will move America more radically leftward than ever in its history,” Dennis Prager summarized.

All these cases will continue to be cited by the Right in pushing its unmotivated constituency to the polls, as “are reminders that elections are not just about putting candidates in office for a few years,” as Thomas Sowell put it to those “who are thinking of venting their frustrations by voting for some third-party candidate that they know has no chance of being elected. There will be a president chosen this November, and he will appoint Supreme Court justices during his term, regardless of whether you stay home or go to the polls.”

Dissenting from last week’s Supreme Court decision recognizing habeas corpus rights for prisoners at Guantanamo, Justice Scalia all but called the judiciary, not to mention his colleagues on the High Court, a Fifth Column in the War on Terror: “[This decision] will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed,” he wrote. Not surprisingly, the Right Wing followed his lead.

Fred Thompson, the recent presidential candidate, said death would be a “tragically obvious” result:

I also find it just a tad ironic that in a case involving habeas corpus, which literally means that one must produce a body (or person) before a court to explain the basis on which that person is being detained, the decision of this court may mean more fallen bodies in the defense of a Constitution some of these justices ignored.

Gary Bauer decried “The radical Left and its liberal allies in Big Media” for supporting “an action beneficial to America’s wartime enemies”: “Whose side are they on?” The Weekly Standard editors similarly wrote, “In their visceral, myopic hatred of President Bush, liberals will see the ruling as a blow to the president and not the broad, foolish, and dangerous judicial power grab it is.”

The National Review denounced “the imperial court,” while the American Spectator’s John Tabin singled out the author of the majority opinion as “Lord Kennedy.” To the Wall Street Journal, he is “President Kennedy”; the editors warned of “another attack on U.S. soil – perhaps one enabled by a terrorist released under the Kennedy rules.”

Larry Thornberry attacked “the al-Qaeda wing of the U.S. Supreme Court.” Joseph Farah described the decision as “wav[ing] the white flag of surrender before al-Qaida and its Islamo-fascist allies throughout the world.”

Writing in FrontPage Magazine, Henry Mark Holzer—who warns that the U.S. will regret the decision “if the Nation lives”—brings it around to the presidential election:

For this constitutional and national security debacle, ultimately we have to thank not only the 5-justice majority but also justice-nominating and justice-confirming Republicans in the White House and Senate.

The Boumediene decision is thus a grave cautionary lesson about what is at stake in this presidential election: nothing less than the future of the Supreme Court for another generation, and with it the security of the United States of America.

Thompson, a prominent supporter of John McCain, similarly alluded to the issue of judges in the election: “What remedy do people have now if they don’t like the court’s decision? None. If that thought is not enough to cause concerned citizens to turn out on Election Day to elect a new president, then I don’t know what will be.”

As for McCain himself, he called this habeas corpus ruling “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”

As John McCain prepares to deliver his remarks on the future of the judiciary today in North Carolina, it looks like he will be under some close scrutiny from the Right, who are growing fed up with his seeming reluctance to throw them red meat:

In town-hall meetings, Sen. McCain makes a point to explain his positions on terrorism, taxes, the economy, energy and health care. But in his prepared remarks, he never mentions abortion, same-sex marriage, judges or gun rights. When asked, he often responds quickly and moves on.

"Imagine if you were an economic conservative and someone never talked about tax policy unless they were asked about it," said Charmaine Yoest, a vice president at the Family Research Council, a conservative advocacy group focused on social issues.

Asked whether she thinks Sen. McCain really cares about the abortion issue, she said, "I don't know, and that's his problem."

As such, many of them are launching a campaign to make the issue of judges a centerpiece of the upcoming election:

Conservative leaders also want the party to embrace language that would instruct Senate leaders to make the confirmation of nominees a higher priority. Conservatives say Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) must press Democrats harder to confirm several controversial nominees, such as D.C. Circuit Court nominee Peter Keisler and 4th Circuit Court nominee Robert Conrad Jr.

Manuel Miranda, a former aide to ex-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), circulated a draft Monday of principles for the GOP platform committee to consider. Several conservative leaders quickly endorsed it. 

Paul Weyrich, chairman of the conservative Free Congress Foundation, said he supports including the language on judicial nominees in the party platform.

“I think the more we particularize that whole issue, the more people focus on the topic,” Weyrich said. Making detailed guidelines on judicial nominees part of the platform would also help social conservatives hold McCain to account if he is elected president.

“You can compare what the party says with any subsequent action by its nominees,” said Weyrich. 

And while McCain is delivering his remarks, Republican National Committee officials will be courting right-wing leaders on this effort having “invited social conservative leaders based in and around Washington, D.C., to attend a meeting Tuesday morning where former Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) will give them a preview of McCain’s remarks.”   

Already McCain surrogate Sen. Sam Brownback is making the rounds assuring the Right that it’ll like what it hears and, judging by excerpts of McCain's remarks and preliminary press coverage, it certainly looks like that will be the case:  

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Tuesday he would appoint judges in the mold of conservatives John Roberts, Samuel Alito and former Chief Justice William Rehnquist if he were elected in November.

In an excerpt from a speech McCain was to give in Winston-Salem on Tuesday, the Arizona senator said he would "look for accomplished men and women with a proven record of excellence in the law, and a proven commitment to judicial restraint."

"I will look for people in the cast of John Roberts, Samuel Alito, and my friend the late William Rehnquist -- jurists of the highest caliber who know their own minds, and know the law, and know the difference," McCain said.

In fact, so sure is the McCain camp that this speech will win over the Right that it is reaching out to them via GOPUSA seeking donations:   

We have a lot at stake in this presidential election. As a nation, we face many challenges that will require real leadership from our next president. I have said before that this election will be about the big things, not the small things, and I write to you today about one big issue in particular - the future of the U.S. Supreme Court. If one of my Democratic opponents is elected in November, you can rest assured that given the opportunity to appoint judges, they will appoint those who make law with disregard for the will of the people.

There may be at least two vacancies on the United States Supreme Court during the next presidential term. As president, I will ensure that only those judges with a strict interpretation of the Constitution of the United States are appointed. I will nominate judges who understand that their role is to faithfully apply the law as written, not impose their opinions through judicial fiat.

If you want judges who have a clear, complete adherence to the Constitution of the United States and who do not legislate from the bench to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, then I ask that you join my campaign for president today by making a financial contribution.