Via Robert Novak:
The abortion advocacy group surely was not asking the judges’ views on abortion. Nancy Keenan, who has been NARAL’s president some five months, told this column her organization is concerned about “out of touch theological activists” becoming judges. Why seek financial information from them? She said the disclosure information might help identify the “character” of judicial nominees.Which nominees? “We have lots of nominees that we have great concern about,” said Keenan. “We’re watching all of them.” In short, NARAL has hired private investigators to embark on a fishing expedition to find irregularities in potential selections for the Supreme Court.
This is only going to get uglier and uglier, as both sides seek any piece of information that can be used to derail the nomination of a person who might threaten a particular position (although the most prominent issue is clearly abortion).
And I will say that if the the tables were turned, and the Democrats controlled the White House and Senate, that in the current climate I would expect that groups on the Right to be doing similar things.
The sad fact of the matter is, we are straying further and further from the idea that we should be looking at qualifications and dealing with nominees via reasoned debate. That is a highly lamentable fact.
May 16th, 2024 at 12:52 pm
Hopes to depoliticize the judiciary start with defeating the nuclear option and depend on the 6 or 7 moderate (or traditional) GOPers who seem to be on the fence. And I would love to see them joined by 6 or 7 Dems who would together decry the influence special interest play in the judicial selection process and work out a compromise.
Indeed, I think that there is no greater victim than the federal judiciary of the increasing power of special interests on both sides of the aisle.
I am not exactly sure how we move toward making the situation better, but I do know that the nuclear option will only make it worse.