More conservative judges needed
My, how quickly Democrats on Capitol Hill rushed to condemn the federal appeals court panel that deemed the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional because of the phrase “under God.”
“I see no reason,” said House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, the Missouri Democrat, “to change the time-tested, venerable pledge that is such a central part of our country’s life and our nation’s heritage.”
“I think we need to send a loud and clear message,” said Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, the South Dakota Democrat, “that the Congress disagrees. The Congress is going to intervene, the Congress is going do all it can to live up to the expectations of the American people.”
Yet, the party of Gephardt and Daschle bears much of the blame for outrageous rulings rendered by liberal, activist courts, such as the notorious 9th Circuit, based in (where else?) San Francisco. After all, the Democrats have used every maneuver and artifice to delay, if not block altogether, the appointment of mainstream conservative jurists to the federal bench; judges who would not strike down the Pledge of Allegiance because it describes the United States as “one nation, under God” because it offends the not-so-tender sensibilities of atheists.
Indeed, it has been more than a year since President Bush unveiled his first 11 nominees for appointments to the federal bench. As of last month, eight of those nominees hadn’t even gotten the courtesy of a hearing in the Daschle Senate. All told, the president has nominated 100 able individuals for federal trial and appeals court seats. Yet, the Senate Democrat majority has seen fit to confirm little more than half so far.
Meanwhile, the federal courts are in crisis mode, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The problem isn’t the high number of vacancies on the federal bench (there have been more vacancies in times past), but there are more key vacancies than ever before, creating what the administrative office refers to as “judicial emergencies.”
Some 38 trial and appeals courts around the country were in a state of emergency last month, based on the size of their caseloads and the length of time they have been operating without a full roster of judges. Last May, when President Bush made his first nominations, there were 33 judicial emergencies. A year earlier, there were 21.
The unspoken hope is that the voters will turn Bush out of the White House, and Democrats will retain control of the Senate (if they do not lose the upper chamber this November).
With both a Democrat in the White House and a Democrat majority in the upper chamber — for the first time since 1992 — the party of Daschle could elevate judges to the federal bench who reflect its left-leaning ideology, like those who dominate the 9th Circuit and have turned the Constitution on its head; who misread the First Amendment’s guarantee of “free exercise” of religion to mean freedom from religion; who interpret the so-called “establishment clause” to prohibit even the mere mention of God, the Almighty, the Creator, in the public square; who disdain this nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage; who ignore that this Republic was founded by men whose words and deeds were informed by religion. Indeed, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer pointed out that the “Declaration of Independence refers to God or the Creator four different times.”
And that’s why the federal courts need to be leavened with the kind of conservative judges President Bush already has nominated. Judges who won’t find it odious to utter the phrase, “So help me God,” when they’re sworn to the bench.
(Joseph Perkins is a columnist for The San Diego Union-Tribune and can be reached at Joseph.Perkins@UnionTrib.com.)