Judge Sonia Sotomayor: Making the Same Mistake Twice

May 27, 2009 by mattbenchener 8 Comments

This article was featured in The Bulletin (Philadelphia-area newspaper) on 6/1/09. You can view the newspaper version here, or check out the print column every week.

Sonia SotomayorLike Barack Obama, who rose from an impoverished background to become the nation’s first African-American President, Judge Sonia Sotomayor has a powerful and inspirational life story. The daughter of immigrants, she grew up in a housing project in the South Bronx, and had to struggle through a difficult childhood without her father. Overcoming cultural and racial barriers, she went on to graduate from Princeton, and eventually from Yale Law School. Her appointment would make her the first Hispanic to serve on the Supreme Court. In Ms. Sotomayor, President Obama likely sees a reflection of himself.

But President Obama and Judge Sotomayor share more than inspirational life stories. They share a troubling and dangerous view of jurisprudence, informed by a liberal ideology that places emotional activism ahead of rational objectivity.

When Justice Souter announced his retirement a month ago, President Obama stated that future Supreme Court justices should have “empathy” for “people’s hopes and struggles,” and work to understand “the daily realities of people’s lives—whether they can make a living and care for their families.” On Tuesday, he praised Judge Sotomayor’s “experience being tested by obstacles and barriers, by hardship and misfortune…a necessary ingredient in the kind of justice we need on the Supreme Court.” President Obama made it clear: The courts ought to be governed by empathy, and legal decisions ought to be shaped by personal experience.

Similarly, Judge Sotomayor has stated that minority judges must consider their “experiences as women and people of color,” and allow such experiences to “affect our decisions.” She later went on to say that “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” Like President Obama, Ms. Sotomayor’s statements shed light on her acceptance of judicial bias.

Perhaps most telling is Judge Sotomayor’s view on judicial activism: “The Court of Appeals is where policy is made. And I know – and I know this is on tape and I should never say that.” Her lengthy history of case law affirms this position, most notably in her now famous decision to essentially forward racial quotas in the New Haven firefighter case.

Thus, given her background and ideology, it should not be surprising that President Obama chose Judge Sotomayor as his nominee. He simply saw a reflection of himself: Inspirational life story; historic racial implications; liberal activist ideology.

As President, that ideology pulls Mr. Obama to attempt to right the perceived injustices in society through government intervention and control. As judge, that ideology pulls Ms. Sotomayor toward judicial activism and legal empathy. The first is dangerous, the latter unjust.

Judicial activism, in short, means that the courts make and shape law. When an activist court hears a case, it decides if the law in question is the right law for society, and rules accordingly. It seeks to alter or define the legal landscape.

The problem is that the creation of law is meant for the legislature. Legislators are supposed to serve as representatives of the people, and therefore work to create law that best serves their constituents. If the will or the composition of the people changes, or they do not like the law created by the legislator, citizens can affect change through elections. This is a true representative democracy.Jurisprudence

The role of the judiciary, by contrast, is to uphold and maintain the rule of law in society. It is to interpret the intent of the law as created by the legislature, and hold it to the rigorous standard of Constitutionality. That is why legislators are elected, while judges are appointed. As a result, judges are not to serve as representatives of the people, but instead as adjudicators of the law established by those representatives. This structure allows for a measured government with checks and balances, the essential framework established by our founders. Ms. Sotomayor’s activism directly threatens this balance.

The heart of Ms. Sotomayor’s judicial philosophy can be found in her regard for empathy and personal bias; a view shared closely with President Obama. When a judge begins to make decisions based on subjectivity, personal experience, or empathy, that judge ceases to be an objective arbiter. It should not matter, as Ms. Sotomayor says, that she is a Latina woman, or as President Obama says, that she comes from a difficult and diverse background. If those factors play into the decision making process, then the law has become emotional and subjective. Clearly, along with her ideological leanings, Ms. Sotomayor was chosen for her championing of such empathetic jurisprudence.

The whole of the argument is best summed up by Manuel Miranda, chairman of the Third Branch Conference, who said, “The president has nominated a highly credentialed judge with an inspiring life story. Regrettably, he also tainted the nomination from its start by suggesting that his nominee would judge based on personal feelings and background, or be biased with empathy for particular classes of litigants.”

In Sonia Sotomayor, we see an eerie reflection of President Obama. In law, as in government, the prospects of liberal activism are both perilous and unjust—judicial restraint should not be politicized. We have already seen the damaging effects of liberal governance, and we simply cannot afford to make the same mistake twice.

-Matt Benchener from TruPolitics.net

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Obama on Abortion

May 20, 2009 by mattbenchener 8 Comments

This article was featured in The Bulletin (Philadelphia-area newspaper) on 5/22/09. You can view the newspaper version here, or check out the print column every Thursday or Friday.
 
Last weekend, President Obama visited Notre Dame, the nation’s preeminent Catholic university, and reignited a seemingly dormant abortion debate. Catholics around the world, from parishioners to clergymen, rallied against the university’s decision to have the pro-choice President deliver Notre Dame’s commencement speech.
President Obama Delivers The Commencement Speech at Notre Dame

President Obama Delivers The Commencement Speech at Notre Dame

As President Obama took the stage, hundreds protested outside the school’s gates. The media buildup to this moment was as strong as any during his short tenure in office.

Understanding the gravity of the situation, President Obama quickly cast a compelling vision for the future. He emphasized the historic nature of the times, and called for a new generation of leaders to embrace the challenges ahead. Part of this leadership, he said, would be to understand the importance of open mindedness and balanced political discourse.

Then, as he has done since first marking his path on the campaign trail, President Obama deftly wove his controversial stance on the issue at hand into a framework of common ground compromise. On abortion, he called for the use of “fair-minded words,” and noted that we must “open our hearts and our minds to those who may not think like we do or believe what we do.” He continued by saying, “Maybe we won’t agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this heart-wrenching decision for any woman is not made casually, it has both moral and spiritual dimensions…that’s when we discover at least the possibility of common ground.” Queue the applause.

President Obama, who has since been lauded by the media for his fair minded handling of the controversy, did what he has always done best: He painted himself as a moderate in the midst of extreme controversy. This first began on the campaign trail, when a Senator with only 143 days of active service in the Senate, the most liberal voting record in the history of Congress, and strong ties to extremists William Ayres and Jeremiah Wright, somehow became a moderate, inspirational leader. It continued with his ascendance to the White House, where sharply liberal earmarked spending initiatives, like the stimulus and the 2010 budget, became the balanced solution to the economic crisis. It now persists with the abortion debate, where his stance, carefully articulated at Notre Dame, is a measured approach that emphasizes liberty while showing reverence for morality. Queue the applause.

Protestors Outside of Notre Dame

Protestors Outside of Notre Dame

What Americans must realize is that President Obama is arguably the greatest politician in U.S. history. He is an incredibly powerful speaker, who combines inspirational rhetoric with a disarming sense of humor. He crafts the message of each policy initiative to draw in both sides of the aisle. While such political acumen can provide for unifying leadership in a time of crisis, it can also hide the reality of an aggressive partisan agenda.

On abortion, that reality is that President Obama holds the most extreme views of any elected official. While in the Senate, he opposed the ban on partial-birth abortion—a practice fellow Democrat Daniel Moynihan once called “too close to infanticide.” He later publicly attacked the Supreme Court decision upholding the partial-birth ban. While serving in the Illinois state Senate, he came out strongly against a bill similar to the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, which prevents the killing of infants mistakenly born alive during attempted abortions. Put bluntly, this means President Obama supports a mother’s right to terminate a birthed child, so long as the child was birthed with the intention of aborting it.

During the 2008 campaign, he famously claimed that he would not want his daughters to be “punished with a baby” because of a crisis pregnancy. More recently, he eased restrictions on federal funding for international family-planning groups that support abortion rights, and forwarded his agenda on embryonic stem-cell research.

To his credit, the centrist line that President Obama attempted to walk at Notre Dame would be welcome in the abortion debate. But, as often happens in politics, reality betrays rhetoric. As he has so clearly demonstrated on issues of economic and fiscal policy, President Obama’s stance on abortion is far from moderate. And on an issue so important to so many, such extremism is simply unacceptable.

I have long strayed from commenting on abortion because of the deluge of impassioned and emotional arguments on both sides of the issue. Rational discourse left the landscape of abortion a long time ago. Furthermore, I’ve said on many occasions that the Republican Party’s championing of certain social activist positions as “conservative,” like its hard-line claim that pro-life meant pro-Republican, did a great disservice to the true economic and philosophical underpinnings of conservatism. To that end, I hold that the question of abortion should not be a question of party, of liberalism, or of conservatism. All Republicans need not be pro-life, and all Democrats need not be pro-choice. Abortion transcends the philosophical divide between liberal and conservative, and the political divide between left and right.

Fundamentally, the question of abortion is a question of the careful balance between life and personal liberty, and should be met with sobriety, not banal rhetoric. Those that are pro-life must understand that the pro-choice position is fundamentally a position of personal liberty and freedom. Those that are pro-choice must understand that the pro-life position is intensely spiritual, and is rooted in a desire for justice for the innocent. In this discourse, there is no place for President Obama’s dismissive view of life.

What happened last weekend was a thinly veiled attempt by President Obama to paint himself as a moderate in the midst of a hailstorm of controversy. He performed, as he always does, magnificently. But Americans, certainly the media, must learn to look to the man, not the politician. And when that happens, they will find a man whose economic policies quash capitalism, whose social policies approach socialism, and whose views on abortion are wantonly extreme.  

-Matt Benchener from TruPolitics.net

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Does The Deficit Matter?

May 14, 2009 by mattbenchener Leave a Comment

“Number one, we inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit. …That wasn’t me.”

-President Barack Obama 

For almost a decade, one of the most impactful economic and fiscal issues of our time has simply been ignored. At best, it has been the elephant in the room that nobody wants to acknowledge, but everybody knows is there: By the end of this year, the United States government will have an estimated $1.84 trillion budget deficit. That forecast, released Monday by the White House, represents nearly 13% of GDP. Simply put, as a nation we owe more than we have–substantially more. This debt is damaging the economy, increasing U.S. risk abroad, and placing a great burden on future generations. Leaders from both parties are complicit, and President Obama’s newly proposed budget shows little regard for the weight of the deficit.

The foundation for the present deficit was forged during the Bush Administration. When President Bush took office in 2001, he inherited a $128 billion budget surplus, one of the shining achievements of the Clinton Administration (or at least of the Congress he led). At the end of the federal budget year for 2008, the Congressional Budget Office reported a deficit of $438 billion, representing the fastest eight year deficit growth in the history of the country. The Bush Administration was hurt by the post-9/11 recession, which greatly impacted tax revenues, as well as massive spending on the Iraq War. However, a huge portion of the deficit was controllable, as a small majority came from costly congressional spending. Expensive programs like No Child Left Behind and Medicare drug supplementation, combined with President Bush’s reluctance to veto Republican earmarks on social programs, created an environment of spending far from fiscal conservatism.

Federal Deficit

President Bush’s successor, Barack Obama, has decided to double down on that debt.  He recently pushed through the $787 billion spending stimulus and signed a $410 billion omnibus spending bill.  His bailouts of the auto, financial, and housing industries are yet to have a final price tag, but most analysts expect it to be upwards of $250 billion. Finally, his recently proposed $3 trillion budget widens non-wartime government spending to levels not seen since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.  Many analysts now expect the deficit to double by 2010. Obama has responded to critics of his wild spending by saying he will gain $17 billion in savings from his budget by cutting waste in weapons systems and education. The cuts in those 121 programs, however, amount to less than one-half of 1 percent of the total budget for 2010.

The question then arises, if both administrations have simply embraced the deficit, does it really matter? Unquestionably. When a government has a deficit, it must raise money to pay for its spending initiatives, and each step in that process has potentially devastating results. There are three ways that the U.S. government funds its debt and spending initiatives: 1. Increased debt to foreign countries; 2. Higher taxes; 3. Printing of money.

First, one of the most commonly used revenue generators is the sale of U.S. debt to foreign nations. The current national debt stands at $10.6 trillion, meaning the U.S. owes close to 75% of its current GDP to foreign nations. This should be worrisome. When a foreign nation holds a substantial amount of U.S. debt, it increases its economic and financial leverage over the U.S., especially when so deeply entrenched in treasury bonds. This gives a nation like China (which now holds close to $1 trillion in U.S. debt) tremendous leverage in the U.S. financial system, as a massive sell-off of government debt would lead to hyper-inflation, immediate  revenue loss, and wide-spread instability in the market. This financial weapon may be the most potent in future questions of national security.

Second, the government can generate revenue through increased taxation on its citizens. Raising taxes pulls money from the private sector into the government revenue stream, and temporarily provides funding for a variety of spending initiatives. The problem here, however, is that a higher tax rate pulls more money out of the economy, where it can be consumed, saved, or invested, and into the government, where a true marketplace does not exist. The more money the government charges businesses and consumers to invest, the less they will invest. The more money the government takes from consumers’ earned income, the less those consumers have to spend. As a result, consumers have less money to pour into businesses, which create jobs and quality products, and businesses have less money to invest in their own development.

The final option to finance government debt is for the treasury to print money.  This is a unique power reserved by the federal government (local governments and states cannot print money, and therefore must declare bankruptcy when they cannot pay back their debt), and is perhaps the most frequently used of all the options. In small doses, printing money can provide a healthy level of monetary supply for an economy. However, as this process accelerates to meet the demands of increased debt and spending, hyper-inflation results. The more money circulating in the economy, the less each dollar is worth. As this imbalance grows, the value of the money taxpayers worked so hard to earn falls rapidly, and consumption again stalls.

The bottom line is that the budget deficit matters both in the present and the future. A balanced budget is indicative of a prudent government and a healthy economy. A deficit damages economic growth and threatens national security.

The solution to the deficit problem is simple: fiscal responsibility. This means reigning in spending, aggressively eliminating earmarks and pork, and shrinking government bureaucracy. We have gone nearly a decade without fiscal responsibility, and past Administrations, from Reagan to Clinton, proved that economic prosperity comes with fiscal conservatism. Our current exposure will only lead to greater economic deceleration, increased leverage from foreign nations, and market instability. We can no longer ignore the elephant in the room.

-Matt Benchener from TruPolitics.net

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Obama’s America: A Course Charted by the Republican Party

May 7, 2009 by mattbenchener 7 Comments

This article was featured in The Bulletin (Philadelphia-area newspaper) on 5/8/09. Check out the newspaper version here, or catch the print column every Thursday or Friday.

President Obama recently completed his first 100 days in office, a period marked by an aggressive agenda in the midst of an economic crisis. His early policy initiatives have been nothing short of historic, and it is clear he hopes to redefine the nation. In this brief period, he passed the largest spending bill in history (the stimulus), initiated obama changeunprecedented government intervention in private industry (the bailouts, the AIG controversy, and the GM/Chrysler takeover), rewrote foreign policy (release of the torture memos, closing of Guantanamo Bay, the apology tour of Europe), and forwarded a spend heavy budget funded by aggressive redistribution taxation.

His election came in the wake of an incredible overturn in Congress, where Democrats now hold a powerful majority that it is virtually filibuster-proof. The course of the nation is now decidedly left. In reflecting back on President Obama’s first 100 days, what is perhaps most astonishing is how dramatically the course of American politics has changed in just four years. When President Bush was reelected in 2004, the Boston Globe declared that his sweeping victory granted him “a clear mandate to advance a conservative agenda over the next four years.” Conservatives are now left wondering what happened.  

While the answer to that question is varied and complex, it is important to note that the rise of the Democratic left came with the fall of the Republican right. The roots of the fall can be traced back to the decision to shun traditional conservatism.

The Bush Administration was arguably the most polarizing administration of the last three decades. “Conservative” or “Republican” meant you were a right-wing extremist who went to an evangelical church every Sunday, owned a gun, were pro-life, hated homosexuals and immigrants, and adhered to a rigid belief system. You also supported the Iraq War, thought global warming was a farce, believed stem cell research was immoral, and were a shareholder of Halliburton. The Republican Party had become a caricature of its leader in the White House.

In an effort to win two very difficult elections following the popular Clinton Administration, Republican strategists thought it necessary to mobilize the traditional conservative base through hot button social issues. Controversial lightening rod issues, like abortion and gay marriage, became the focal point of debate, and the party was “finally rallying behind its conservative base.” 

Such policy required a new brand of political activism, known to Bush advisors as “neo-conservatism.” At its core, neo-conservatism sought to advance certain “conservative” values through government intervention. With abortion, for example, neo-conservatism called for government funded abstinence programs, faith based pregnancy centers, and pro-life public relations funding. Stem cell research brought similar action, coupling tight regulation with increased spending on alternative methods of scientific research. The list goes on and on.

The party was realigning itself along highly controversial lines, forwarding an agenda focused on government activism, and by proxy, government spending. Interest groups within the party, and certain policy leaders, felt that the country ought to look a certain way and embrace certain societal, cultural, and religious values. Those values became “conservative” values. The “conservative” government was attempting to define societal and cultural norms.GOP

“What’s the problem with being pro-life, or believing in the sanctity of marriage?” you may be asking. Nothing. Each of the social programs embraced by the Bush Administration had merit. The problem arose when Republicans became functional liberals, expanding government and spending wildly to enforce these values. The defining line between the left and the right was no longer marked by small government v. big government, low taxes v. redistribution, or personal responsibility v. welfare. The defining line was now marked by incredibly controversial and divisive issues, and the new level of government activism posed a direct threat to those on the opposite side of that line.

That threat brought about an astounding degree of political activism, and gave rise to a highly energized liberal base. The early years of the Bush presidency gave rise, among other things, to MoveOn.org, Nancy Sheehan, and a decidedly liberal media. When the movement began, they were not fighting for liberalism, they were fighting against President Bush. All the while, the Republican Party lost its conservative identity, and became a party marked by partisan politics. It was only a matter of time before the partisan tables were turned.

A recent Fox poll showed that 76% of independents worry government will spend too much to help the economy; only 12% worry it will spend too little. The same poll showed that the vast majority of Americans fear big government more than they fear big business. Americans are conservative at heart. Our nation was founded on the principles of personal industry, small government, and fiscal responsibility. Excessive taxes, after all, gave rise to the original tea party. When the Republican Party was its strongest, it embraced Ronald Reagan’s Big Tent: Anyone who believes in low taxes, strong national defense, and small government is welcome. Reagan left office with the highest approval ratings of any President.

It is a great shame that conservatism took on a wholly different identity over the past eight years. Now we are reaping the political consequences. It is time that conservatism become the foundational political philosophy it was always meant to be.

-Matt Benchener from TruPolitics.net

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Political Snapshot: Supreme Court Justice David Souter Retires

May 5, 2009 by mattbenchener 1 Comment

This is a new feature on TruPolitics.net. Political Shapshots offer a brief, concise summary of a current issue. Each Snapshot has a representation of the left and right perspective, as well as the TruPolitics take on the issue.

Last week, Supreme Court Justice David Souter announced he would be retiring from the Supreme Court. The departure of Justice Souter, whose tenure began with his appointment in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush, leaves open a key seat for President Obama to fill.

Right:Most Republicans describe Justice Souter as the conservative jurist who wasn’t, a liberal judge in conservative’s clothing. Souter was the deciding liberal vote to uphold Roe v. Wade in 1992, registered a dissenting opinion in favor of Al Gore in the Bush v. Gore Florida ballot case, and has generally been seen by Republicans as an overly liberal and progressive judge. Because Souter himself is seen as liberal, the appointment of his replacement will not tip the current judicial balance. Republicans, nonetheless, will fight vehemently against any liberal nominee by the Obama Administration. This serves two purposes: 1.Ideloglical—to call to light issues with judicial activism and the need for conservative justices; 2. Political—to stall the general Democrat agenda by tying up debate and legislation with the approval and vetting process.

Left: Most liberals laud Justice Souter as a man who broke from the party which appointed him and shunned partisan politics in favor of proper judicial practice. They praise his progressive record, and view him as a savior of sorts that kept the Supreme Court from falling into conservative control. The appointment of a justice is a key legacy for any president, and Obama has already made it clear he favors a progressive over a conservative. Democrats know they are in for a battle, and have expressed a desire to keep the appointment and nomination process to a minimum so as to focus on their broader agenda.

TruPolitics: While Justice Souter’s tenure was disappointing along many conservative fronts, he should be admired for focusing on the law rather than politics. He was not a judicial activist, nor was he decidedly partisan. He did, however, view the Constitution as progressive, or malleable with time. Though he was more moderate than truly liberal, his overarching Constitutional philosophy toed the line of progressive jurisprudence, a dangerous line that many of his constituents have crossed. Going forward, it is important that President Obama look for a justice who believes in strict interpretation of the Constitution, and who looks to uphold, rather than change, legal precedent. His early considerations, like Judge Sonia Sotomayor and Yale Law Dean Harold Koh, represent a sharply liberal ideology that speaks of judicial activism. The law was never meant to make policy; that is the job of Congress, and such activism threatens the balance so carefully established by our founders. The law was meant to reaffirm Constitutional values as to the Framers’ intent, not the intent of activists.

For an excellent take on the Supreme Court and the Constitution, I highly recommend Whither Goes the Constitution from The Daily Switch.

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Political Shapshot: Chrysler To Declare Bankruptcy

May 1, 2009 by mattbenchener 4 Comments

This is a new feature on TruPolitics.net. Political Shapshots offer a brief, concise summary of a current issue. Each Snapshot has a representation of the left and right perspective, as well as the TruPolitics take on the issue.

On Friday, the White House announced it would finally shepherd Chrysler into bankruptcy. The 84 year-old company’s Chapter 11 filing is the sixth largest in history, and shifts ownership from current shareholders to Italian automaker Fiat and the United Autoworkers union.

Right: Increased government intervention has incited outrage from many top Republicans who initially opposed the automaker bailouts. Expect to hear from Republican leaders as the story unfolds, especially regarding the failure of the bailouts and the waste of the $4 billion loan given to Chrysler by taxpayers a few months ago.

Left: Nearly all Democrats supported the initial bailout, citing the importance of the companies to the U.S. economy and the rights of the UAW. In the new plan, the left has not wavered in its commitment to back the company with government dollars and support. President Obama pledged $3.3 billion in increased support to Chrysler, $2 billion of which will be used to pay off Chrysler’s lenders and the rest to pay the company’s bills during bankruptcy. The government said it is prepared to pitch in $4.76 billion more to keep Chrysler running for several years. The Obama Administration blamed the bankruptcy on 20 smaller investment firms and hedge funds, who voted as a group to reject the government’s last offer to eliminate $6.9 billion in debt owed to them.

TruPolitics.net: Chapter 11 is the correct move for Chrysler, as it will allow the company to restructure its debt, renegotiate poor contracts, and trim its bloated inventory. General Motors would be wise to take the same route. The bankruptcy, however, means that the bailouts failed. The $4 billion American taxpayers lent to the company is now for naught. Even so, the Obama Administration has pledged an additional $8.06 billion in future support to the company, brining the total taxpayer bill to $12.06 billion. That represents approximately $115 per household in the United States—an enormous waste of money. The bankruptcy should have happened months ago, before the bailouts, and it would have if it wasn’t for government intervention. Significantly, the newly proposed plan also gives the union a majority ownership stake in the company (at least what is not sold to Fiat), pushing aside the rights of shareholders and credit holders. This is proof that government intervention in the private market is both flawed and unjust.

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