Comment by azinman2
1 year ago
“What the law is, not what it should be” is code for a particular viewpoint on how to rule itself, which is activism.
1 year ago
“What the law is, not what it should be” is code for a particular viewpoint on how to rule itself, which is activism.
If everything is "activism" then nothing is "activism".
Judges are “activist” as a political label only when they rule in a way that you don’t like. It is a meaningless label generated by politicians to get them to vote for them and put in different judges who will vote the way they think you want! And that’s not activism?
You and I clearly have different ideas of what constitutes judicial activism. What would you consider to be "non-activist" then, if ruling based on what the law says rather than on your personal politics is itself activist?
Laws are not boolean logic that are cut and dry, otherwise we wouldn’t need human judges.
The federalist society is a well funded organization whose goal and track record is to install conservative judges to interpret the law in a very specific way, all the way up to the Supreme Court. I’d that’s not activism then I don’t know what is.
I don't disagree the Federalist Society is activist. I'm saying the judges they produce aren't, because that "very specific way" is "follow the law, not your political biases" which is, by definition, the precise opposite of judicial activism. It sounds like you disagree with that definition of judicial activism, but you haven't provided a better alternative.
To preempt the answer you've given elsewhere in this thread "they rule in a way that you don’t like" isn't a good definition, and seems from my perspective like an attempt to muddy the issue in order to allow you to put activist judges on equal moral footing with those who actually follow the law. You are correct that its impossible to eliminate all bias, but responding to that reality by throwing up your hands and saying "I guess everyone's an activist then, judges should just ignore the law and rule based solely on their personal biases instead" definitely isn't helping the situation. There's a spectrum here, and The Federalist Society has as one of its explicit goals encouraging judges to move towards the non-activist side of that spectrum.
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