New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | January 11, 2006

If Sam Alito makes it to the highest court in the land, Jacob Sullum hopes he develops a taste for "judicial activism."

Comments

Warren|1.11.06 @ 10:15AM|#

I am in favor of liberal abortion laws. Heck I'd even be in favor of retro-active abortion. But you know, that's just me. I don't have any kids, so whatever, I can live with it. I always felt that Roe was horribly decided, even though it resulted in a better society, it was a blatant constitutional breach.

So if Alito wants to overturn Roe, hey I could live with that. I just don't see any reason to believe he will come through on limiting executive power, or banning torture, or finding activities that Americans engage in that aren't interstate commerce, or�

|1.11.06 @ 10:33AM|#

I actually have some faith in Alito's position on interstate commerce, considering his opinion in '96 that the icc doesn't give the federal governmnet authority to ban machine guns. Just my quick two cents.

|1.11.06 @ 10:48AM|#

I think that Alito will be very good on commerce clause matters and very principled on individual rights. People give Scalia such a bad rap but Scalia has made some very favorable decisions regarding individual rights, especially in the areas of political speech and commercial speech. Unfortuneately he gets little credit for that because to most "libertarians" individual rights means keeping the cops from finding their stash and not much else. This will be a whole lot better than O'Conner who instead of having a judicial philosophy ussualy had a result she wanted and wrote muddle opinions to get there.

|1.11.06 @ 10:56AM|#

John,

That's very funny! It was really neat the way you switched the descriptions of Scalia and O'Conner. Hoo hoo!

|1.11.06 @ 12:01PM|#

Rimfax

You tell me what O'Conner's philosphy is? Even her defenders don't know. Scalia, in contrast, read the Constition to mean what it says when it was written. You may not like that, but at least its something beyond, "I want this result".

Larry A|1.11.06 @ 12:06PM|#

My favorite application of the modern "judicial activist" label is still the judges who were branded "activist" because in the Schiavo case they refused to intervene.

|1.11.06 @ 1:35PM|#

I'd love to see the day when all the senators are intent on finding a judge who is determined to let those same senators create the law, instead of trying to find a judge who will try to create laws they like.

Whatever happened to the constitution?

|1.11.06 @ 1:41PM|#

John:

I think you need to take a much closer look at what Scalia has actually said regarding the Constitution. On the other hand, your description of O'Connor isn't too far off.

|1.11.06 @ 6:48PM|#

There's no telling what else President Bush or his successors will decide to do in the name of the never-ending war on terrorism, but we can be pretty sure they will condemn as judicial activism any attempt by judges to stop them from doing it.

i think i would call it activisism depending on how the opinion went...ie if they uphold FISA saying that congress has the power to change presidential power without a constitutional amendment but if they say that bill of rights trump presidential power then i might not call it activism.

Is it even possible today to say that some things are unconstitutional but not like that they are unconstitutional. I mean i think Roe v wade was unconstitutional, but i think women should have the right to choose (to a point) and if there was an amendment movement i would support it...is this idea impossible?