Two Court related articles in the Peoria Journal Star today. One headline reads "Roberts attacks assisted suicide." This, I would say, is another example of a misleading headline. According to the first sentence of the article, "New Chief Justice Roberts stepped forward Wednesday as an aggressive defender of federal authority to block doctor-assisted suicide, as the Supreme Court clashed over an Oregon law that lets doctors help terminally ill patients end their lives." (Page A2) According to the article, he did not attack assisted suicide. What he said is that federal law takes precedent over state law. According to the Constitution, that is exactly right. Article VI Section 2 specifically states that laws passed by Congress are the supreme law of the land. What seems unique is that we actually have a Justice (There are a few others.) who wants to base his decision upon the Constitution. Now if we could only get every Justice to do the same thing!

The other story was on the front page and dealt with President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court. According to the article, some conservative Senators and some conservative groups are complaining about the nomination because she lacks a record to tell them that she is conservative on the issues. My advice: be quiet (I was tempted to say "shut up" but I resisted that temptation.) and support the nomination.

First, President Bush has said that he will only nominate strict constructionists to the Court. If she is a strict constructionist, her views are of little concern. In fact, the views of a Justice should not be a consideration. The key to all appointments to the courts is whether they are a strict constructionist or not. A strict constructionist by definition will not normally allow his/her personal views to interfere with the constitutional decision. The key is whether or not she will use the Constitution as written to reach her decisions. Try trusting the President. He is the one (through his staff) who has done the research.

Secondly, there is never a guarantee that an individual will vote on the Supreme Court the way he/she voted on other courts. The power of the Supreme Court entices some individuals to support positions they never publicly had before. Justice O'Connor, in my opinion, is a prime example of that. She had a number of libertine votes that were not expected from our past actions. One will not know for certain until after the fact.

Finally, if she is a strict constructionist, this appointment, in my opinion, is brilliant. The libertine Democrats will not be able to question every single decision she has made in past court cases. Of course, they should not be doing that anyway but we know that they have and that they probably would if they could. They can not "Bork" her if there is no past material to do it with.