Friday, October 21, 2005

Delay Judicial Ethics

Delay's demand for a non-Democratic judge, as a prominent former national leader in representative government signals strong problems with our Constitutional assumption of non-partisan judicial advocacy. If Delay does not believe a Democratic judge would be impartial and non-partisan in a hearing, why should we believe a Republican judge would be more impartial?

This poses serious questions beyond the Delay case. Largely nationwide, if judges are elected and selected based on record and not partisan affiliations, why does and should partisan support and contributions matter once cases are heard by that judge? Perhaps, we should stop covering up the truth; conservative presidents nominate conservative judges, and this dichotomy trickles down to the local level. The variability of conservative differs as we've learned with Souter and O'Connor, but they're conservative nonetheless. Conservative, in today's political lingo means "Republican."

Let's be honest: Republicans back Republicans, Democrats back Democrats, it's the beauty and fallacy of a two-party system. A robe or title doesn't erase one's politics.

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