“Presidents should generally refrain from commenting on pending cases during the process of judicial deliberation.”
From The Washington Post:
President Obama struck a nerve this week when he took the unusual step of commenting on Supreme Court deliberations, saying it would be an “unprecedented, extraordinary” step for the justices to overturn the health-care law that stands as his signature domestic policy achievement.
Many conservatives charged that Obama’s words amounted to a stark warning that he intends to campaign against the court if the law or its key elements are struck down, while some speculated that he was trying to bully the justices. One Texas judge, outraged that Obama seemed to question the court’s very right to review laws, ordered the Justice Department to submit a three-page explanation of what role the administration believes the courts have.
Even some legal scholars sympathetic to Obama and the health-care law are saying that the president might have been better off keeping quiet.
“Presidents should generally refrain from commenting on pending cases during the process of judicial deliberation,” said Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe, a close Obama ally. “Even if such comments won’t affect the justices a bit, they can contribute to an atmosphere of public cynicism that I know this president laments.”
[T]he White House was forced to defend the assertion that overturning the health-care law would be unprecedented. According to the Congressional Research Service, the court through 2010 had ruled 165 times that laws passed by Congress were unconstitutional.
Should Obama decide to challenge the court more directly, some experts say he faces political risk. Not only is the health-care law unpopular — polls show that many Americans see it as unconstitutional — but the court itself can be a losing target.
James Gibson, a political science professor at Washington University in St. Louis, has found in an annual survey that Americans hold a consistently high regard for the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.
“Obama’s got to be very careful about attacking the institution,” Gibson said. “We have good data to suggest the Supreme Court is deeply respected, and that’s even after Bush v. Gore, even among Democrats and even among African Americans.”
President Obama struck a nerve this week when he took the unusual step of commenting on Supreme Court deliberations, saying it would be an “unprecedented, extraordinary” step for the justices to overturn the health-care law that stands as his signature domestic policy achievement.
Many conservatives charged that Obama’s words amounted to a stark warning that he intends to campaign against the court if the law or its key elements are struck down, while some speculated that he was trying to bully the justices. One Texas judge, outraged that Obama seemed to question the court’s very right to review laws, ordered the Justice Department to submit a three-page explanation of what role the administration believes the courts have.
Even some legal scholars sympathetic to Obama and the health-care law are saying that the president might have been better off keeping quiet.
“Presidents should generally refrain from commenting on pending cases during the process of judicial deliberation,” said Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe, a close Obama ally. “Even if such comments won’t affect the justices a bit, they can contribute to an atmosphere of public cynicism that I know this president laments.”
[T]he White House was forced to defend the assertion that overturning the health-care law would be unprecedented. According to the Congressional Research Service, the court through 2010 had ruled 165 times that laws passed by Congress were unconstitutional.
Should Obama decide to challenge the court more directly, some experts say he faces political risk. Not only is the health-care law unpopular — polls show that many Americans see it as unconstitutional — but the court itself can be a losing target.
James Gibson, a political science professor at Washington University in St. Louis, has found in an annual survey that Americans hold a consistently high regard for the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.
“Obama’s got to be very careful about attacking the institution,” Gibson said. “We have good data to suggest the Supreme Court is deeply respected, and that’s even after Bush v. Gore, even among Democrats and even among African Americans.”
posted by Sid Cottingham | 6:15 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home