Ginsburg is Lonely
29 January 2007 | 07h06According to the Washington Post, Justice Ginsburg, as the only woman on the bench, feels isolated since the departure of Justice O’Conner.
According to the Washington Post, Justice Ginsburg, as the only woman on the bench, feels isolated since the departure of Justice O’Conner.
Regarding Judicial Review:
The United States Constitution is largely silent on the workings of the federal courts. The concept of judicial review is not outlined anywhere in Article III. It was created in Marbury v. Madison as a necessary function of the court.
So where do strict constructionists derive their authority for judicial review?
In a unanimous decision (Stevens concurring in judgement), the Supreme Court today issued an opinion allowing Anna Nicole Smith to pursue her claim for her one-half of the estate of her late “husband.” From a quick glance, the Court based its opinion largely on a “probate” exception, where a federal court has jurisdiction to entertain suits of legatees and other claimants to an estate so long as it does not interfere with the state’s probate procedures.
A copy of the opinion can be found here.
At least, that’s how he thinks it should be.
Senator Arlen Specter wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post Tuesday arguing that the Court needs to suck it up and accept his bill to open up the Court to television cameras. With all due respect to Senator Specter, but his camera bill is a lot of static.
The inner working of the Court have been shrouded in mystery since the Court was created. To this day, many of the mechanisms are simply unknown. Requiring the Court to open itself to television cameras will provide no additional insight. No longer is the well of the Court the great forum for legal debate; issues are largely disposed of in written briefs (and, more cynically, in the jurisprudence of the Justices). The oral arguments do have some worth, but adding a television camera will not add any depth to the debate. For those who want to listen to the debates, they are available as audio recordings. This should satisfy the curiosity of the C-SPAN junkie and Court-watcher alike. No other federal court, after all, is being subjected to the requirement of being available to the viewing public, so why the Court?
Apparently no one, you loser. Scalia, J., is telling you, the one who doubts his impartiality, to “get a life.”
Sigh…