Apparently, judicial activism like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. On Sunday, Texas Senator John Cornyn told Fox News that the impact of the Supreme Court's Citizen United ruling, which erased decades of precedents on corporate political campaign financing, has "been overstated." Given the victory in Massachusetts this week that his National Republican […]

As the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor predictably devolved into mindless Republican regurgitation about wise Latinas, empathy, judicial activism and New Haven firefighters, one revealing exchange about the impact of the September 11 attacks was largely overlooked. The 9/11 tragedy, Sotomayor insisted, "doesn't change" the Constitution. As it turns out, her claim […]

For the second time in five days, the tide of current events washed ashore Chief Justice John Roberts' Reagan-era past. On Monday, Roberts authored the Court's majority opinion in the Austin case which almost realized his 1980's goal of gutting the Voting Rights Act. And as the New York Times recalled Friday, back in 1984 […]

In a highly anticipated ruling today, the United States Supreme Court preserved - for now - the Voting Rights Act of 1965. While its 8-1 decision enabled municipal governments to opt out of Section 5 federal "pre-clearance" requirements for 16 mostly Southern states, the majority opinion avoided the larger constitutional issue. Which means that the […]

Back in 1995, Newt Gingrich famously concluded menstruation rendered women unfit for combat roles in the military. Now just two days after Gingrich branded Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor "racist," convicted Watergate felon and right-wing radio host G. Gordon Liddy agreed that both of Newt's arguments disqualify Sotomayor. Period. After echoing Tom Tancredo's slander that […]

Earlier this month, George Washington University professor and New Republic legal analyst Jeffrey Rosen turned to anonymous sources in a blistering - and controversial - attack on Judge Sonia Sotomayor's judicial temperament. Now just days after the raging right predictably made Rosen's smears a centerpiece in the battle against Sotomayor, the mainstream media is following […]

You know things are bad for the conservative movement when John Cornyn comes to the defense of Sonia Sotomayor. On Thursday, the Texas Senator called rejected as "terrible" charges from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich that Sotomayor is a "racist." Coming from a man who casually condoned threats against American judges, Cornyn's […]

48 hours after announcing Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor "appears to be racist," Republican Tom Tancredo today blasted her association with the National Council of La Raza, deeming the organization "a Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses." As it turns out, of course, the GOP itself has a long tradition of reaching out […]

During his confirmation hearings in 2005, Chief Justice John Roberts introduced the sound bite that is now the predictable companion to Republican outrage over "judicial activism." "Judges are like umpires," Roberts analogized, adding, "Umpires don't make the rules; they apply them." Now as Senate Republicans seek to derail President Obama's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor […]

Back in 1998, Arizona Senator John Kyl was one of 28 Republicans to oppose the nomination Sonia Sotomayor to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. But while he was one of the most ardent voices demanding an "up or down vote" for President Bush's judicial selections in 2005, since November Kyl has been threatening to […]