Re: [APFN] Sen. John Ashcroft nominated Attorney General


"The Legal Profession is nothing but a high class racket."
Law Professor Fred Rodell.

Here is an article about what Mr. Ashcroft said.

A Dios,
Manny Zayas
ZOBOLI@aol.com
On Judicial Despotism
>
>by Sen. John Ashcroft
>
>Sen. Ashcroft, Chairman of Senate Subcommittee on the
>Constitution, "On Judicial Despotism" Courting Disaster:
>Judicial Despotism in the Age of Russell Clark CPAC
>Annual Meeting March 6, 1997
>
>Senator John Ashcroft, Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee
>on the Constitution, offers a sober analysis in a speech given in
>March to on America's need to curb the activities of judges who
>legislate from the Bench.
>
>Thank you, Bill Pascoe, for that warm introduction. And, David
>(Keene) thank you for all that you and the American Conservative
>Union have done for movement politics.
>
>Let me begin by welcoming you to Washington. I want to
>welcome you not just in terms of hospitality, but also in terms
>of what you represent, and the values that you bring: the values
>of industry and commerce; integrity and faith; love of family and
>of country. And, perhaps most of all, a recognition that America's
>best days lie ahead.
>
>All too often, the Congress thinks there is no end to the good
>they can do with your money and their brains It is time for us
>to put an end to this misguided belief. The Founding Father's
>vision was for a constitutional republic where the will of the people
>would be imposed on Washington, not the views of Washington
>imposed on the people.
>
>So, for those of us who toil under the dark cloud of this capital
>city, your presence here this morning is an inspiration.
>
>Part ofthe mythology surrounding our Constitution is the idea
>that its adoption was inevitable. Time and distance have made
>it difficult to imagine that the wisdom and insight that is our
>founding document could have been tossed on the ash heap
>of history.
>
>Our forefathers, however, suffered no such delusions. They
>understood that the ratification debate was about first things,
>fundamental principles, ideas purchased with patriots' blood.
>Alexander Hamilton predicted that a "torrent of angry and
>malignant passions" would be awakened by the debate. He
>was not disappointed.
>
>In Virginia, Patrick Henry decried the new Constitution,
>calling it a "resolution as radical as that which separated
>us from [the Crown]." In New England, opponents worried
>aloud about liberties lost, rights eroded, judicial power left
>like, quote, "a boundless ocean."
>
>But Hamilton and his allies would not yield to these sharply
>expressed fears of judicial despotism. Rejecting such concerns,
>Hamilton offered his now famous phrase, "Here, Sir, the people
>govern."
>
>But "here" in America today, can it still be said that "the
>people govern"? Can it still be said that citizens control that
>which matters most? Or have people's lives and fortunes
>been relinquished to renegadejudges, a robed, contemptuous
>intellectual elite fulfilling Patrick Henry's prophecy, that of
>turning the courts into, quote, "nurser[ies] of vice and the
>bane of liberty"?
>
>Consider just how far the federal judiciary has strayed. In 1987,
>the federal courts assumed the right to tax the American people.
>District Judge Russell Clark ordered a tax increase to "remedy
>vestiges of segregation" in the Kansas City, Missouri school
>system. The decree -- and two billion tax dollars -- turned the
>city's school district into a gold-plated Taj Mahal complete with
>editing and animation labs, vivariums and greenhouses,
>temperature-controlled art galleries, and a model UN wired
>for language translation.
>
>While satiating the judge's thirst for educational intermeddling,
>the reforms left student achievement unchanged. And so today,
>the planetariums, pools, and pay increases stand only as a
>testament to tyranny, an appalling judicial activism that is
>contrary to all that the Framers held dear. As Supreme Court
>Justice Clarence Thomas indignantly opined, "[Clark] has
>trampled upon the principles of federalism" and in turn the
>Constitution itself.
>
>Or, consider 1992 when the court challenged God's ability to
>mark when life begins and ends. Three Reagan appointees
>joined the majority in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern
>Pennsylvania v. Casey to uphold a "woman's right to choose."
>So much for recapturing the Court. Together, Roe, Casey and
>their illegitimate progeny have occasioned the slaughter of
>thirty-five million children, thirty-five million innocents denied
>standing before the law.
>
>My friends, when the Court intervenes in such matters, debate
>in the public square does not end. The divide only deepens.
>Who among us would suggest that abortion is less divisive today
>than when the Court wrested control from the fifty states and the
>people? As Judge Bork asserts, the abortion rulings represent
>"nothing more than the decision of a Court majority to enlist on
>one side of the culture war.
>
>In 1995, the Supreme Court stole the right of self-determination
>from the people, throwing out Arkansas' congressional term
>limit law. No matter your thinking on term limits, consider only
>this: the Constitution is "silent" on limited tenure. And, as Justice
>Thomas recognized, "where the Constitution is silent it raises no
>bar to action by the states or the people.
>
>In recalling the term limits decision, I am always reminded of
>Ed Jaksha, a retired telephone company manager. Jaksha
>canvassed the state of Nebraska -- in authentic colonial garb --
>imploring voters to Turnout for Term Limits. A year later,
>Jaksha's time and treasure were deemed ill-spent by five
>ruffians in robes who were kind enough to save him from
>himself.
>
>In 1996, the courts removed from the people the ability to
>establish equality under the law. District Court Judge Thelton
>Henderson prohibited the state of California from implementing
>Prop. 209. A Carter appointee who served on the ACLUs Board
>of Directors, Henderson held that if the California Civil Rights
>Initiative (CCRT) were implemented, minorities would "face an
>immediate possibility of irreparable harm." But, Judge Henderson,
>what of the "irreparable harm" racial preference programs are
>inflicting right now? What of the Asian high school students
>routinely rejected at Berkeley based solely on the color of their
>skin? And, what of the "irreparable harm" activist judges have
>visited upon the U.S. Constitution?
>
>Perhaps someone should remind Judge Henderson that the
>constituting doctrine of all truly free societies is that rights
>belong to individuals, not groups. This was the essence of
>Justice Harlan's dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson just over a
>century ago. "The Constitution is color-blind," wrote Harlan,
>"and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens."
>
>Tragically, the courts have turned your individual rights into
>group rights as the aggrieved rush to our least representative
>branch in search of entitlement.
>
>These cases are but a page of snapshots in an album of the
>liberties lost. Over the last half century, the federal courts have
>usurped from school boards the power to determine what a child
>can learn; removed from the people the ability to establish
>equality under the law; and challenged God's ability to mark
>when life begins and ends. The courts have made liars of Hamilton,
>Madison, and Morris, confirming our forefathers' worst fears. For
>what the Framers intended to be the weakest branch of government,
>the judiciary, has become the most powerful.
>
>What, then, can we do to put an end to judicial tyranny? We
>can begin by asking ourselves why modern judicial activism
>exists in the first place. Could it be that we have been lax in
>demanding that judges place our constitutional rights before
>their policy objectives? Could it be we have failed to rejectjudges
>who are willing to place their private preferences above the
>people's will? Could it be that we have populated the courts
>with judges who believe their intellect to be superior to that
>of the Framers? Could it be all of the above?
>
>It is time to heed the counsel of Ed Meese by scrutinizing
>fully the nominees who come before the Senate for "advice
>and consent." Meese is right: there must be a dialogue
>between the President and the Senate regardingjudicial
>nominees. And, if the White House fails to solicit our "advice,"
>perhaps we should withhold our "consent."
>
>What of the current crop of would-be judges? Consider William
>Fletcher nominated by the President to the Ninth Circuit Court
>of Appeals. What has Mr. Fletcher done with himself since his
>Rhodes Scholar days with the President? Tenure at Berkeley's
>Boalt Hall School of Law has provided Fletcher a forum to outline
>a judicial vision as bold as it is misguided.
>
>It seems Mr. Fletcher feels judges should be able to use what he
>calls "discretionary" powers to achieve desired policy goals. In
>other words, Mr. Fletcher wants to use a court appointment as
>a license to legislate.
>
>Americans have always believed efforts by the judiciary to legislate
>from the bench are illegitimate. To which Fletcher responds, "The
>presumption of illegitimacy may be overcome when the political
>bodies that should ordinarily exercise such discretion are seriously
>and chronically in default." Judge Russell Clark, meet "Willy"
>Fletcher; you two are sure to be fast friends. Frankly, the only
>thing "seriously and chronically in default," Mr. Fletcher, is your
>thinking on the United States Constitution.
>
>And then there is Margaret McKeown, another nominee for the
>Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. It was McKeown, her ACLU
>marching orders in hand, who led the fight to disallow a Washington
>state ballot initiative denying special rights to homosexuals.
>
>Now, if McKeown's opposition had been confined to lobbying
>against the measure, so be it. That is her constitutionally
>protected right. But her efforts were far more sinister. She
>attempted to keep Washington voters from deciding on the
>measure at all. McKeown argued that the initiative process
>itselfwas unconstitutional and represented an "immediate and
>irreparable harm." The mere act of collecting signatures, it
>seems, would cause suffering, suicides, and substance abuse.
>Please! It's time to expose Mrs. McKeown and her ACLU
>friends for the liberal elitists that they are.
>
>Let me be clear: this is not about personality, it's not about
>ideology. It's about preserving our rights as they were indelibly
>inscribed in the Constitution. It is about not wanting more
>Russell Clarks on the federal bench. It is about a judicial
>legacy forged by the President and the Senate that will live
>well beyond the year 2000.
>
>We need nominees who care more about preserving and
>restoring the Constitution than running schools, parks, and
>prisons; more about the ACU than the ACLU.
>
>That is the essence of the pledge that my friend Paul Weyrich
>is circulating in the Senate. Paul's pledge simply and clearly
>offers the words of Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch. It
>says, "Those nominees who are or will be judicial activists should
>not be nominated by the President or confirmed by the Senate,
>and I personally will do my best to see to it that they are not.
>
>What a tragic state of affairs when conservatives feel compelled
>to circulate a pledge to safeguard a constitution that every
>Senator was sworn to "preserve, protect, and defend." Nonetheless,
>let me talk to this issue, speaking for no individual save myself.
>When I laid my hand on the Bible to take the Oath ofOffice, I
>made my pledge to our Constitution. And as long as I have a
>voice and a vote in the U.S. Senate, I will fight the judicial despotism
>that stands like a behemoth over this great land.
>
>At its best, the Court is the guardian of the Constitution, a
>body to which all Americans look for the ultimate protection
>of their rights. At its worst, it is home to a "let-them-eat-cake
>elite" who hold the people in the deepest disdain. By guiding
>the judicial selection process, we can begin to reestablish the
>constitutional balance envisioned by the Framers.
>
>It is also time for us to take a broader, comprehensive look at
>the alarming increase in activism on the Court. As Chairman
>of the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, I intend to
>convene hearings in the months ahead to examine this disturbing
>trend. Americans should not sit idly by as our individual rights
>are surrendered. We should enlist the American people in an
>effort to rein in an out-of-control Court.
>
>Our forefathers who warned of judicial power left like "a boundless
>ocean" were right. A half-century of unbridled judicial activism
>has made that danger clear to all but the intentionally ignorant.
>Experience is both the best and most expensive teacher. So,
>now that the costly lesson has been learned, "why stand we
>here idle" while the precious jewel of liberty is lost? Let us lend
>our voice to this cause. So that one day, in the not so distant
>future, we might once again say, "Here, Sir, the people govern."
>
>Thank you very much.

A PERSON FROM MO SAYS...
HE'S A WOLF IN SHEEPS CLOTHING!

"I tolerate with the utmost latitude the right of
others to differ from me in opinion"
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or
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Manny Zayas