Goodbye, Justice Stevens

Undoubtedly, one of the most talked about topics in the world of politics at this point in time is the retirement of Justice Stevens.

Often times, the general public has very little knowledge concerning the Supreme Court, and thus do not know who is exactly making these judgements that effect our nation. Justice Stevens is one of the longest serving supreme court justice’s in history, having served since 1975, when President Ford placed him on the bench. Since that time, Justice Stevens has made many landmark decisions, often writing opinions for these cases. Some of the important ones decided during his time on the bench:

Hamdan v. Rumsfield: In this decision, Justice Stevens wrote the decision which struck down the military commissions that were set up by the Bush Administration to try the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, as they violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions

Atkins v. Virginia: Justice Stevens wrote the the landmark decision which stated that it is unconstitutional the put mentally retarded criminals to death, due to the cruel and unusual punishment clause in the Eighth Amendment

Bush v. Gore: In this case, Justice Stevens did not write an opinion, but rather a very strong dissent. In his dissent, he chastised the majority of the Court for undermining the state judges’ abilities to make impartial decisions about the recount in Florida.

Most recently, Justice Stevens read his 90-page dissent in Citizens United v. FEC just this year, showing his strong disapproval for the opinion reached by the majority.

All in all, Justice Stevens has had a remarkable period on the bench, and it will be incredibly sad to see him leave the bench.

I Was In Indy At The Wrong Time.

This is going to be a rather unconventional post, so I apologize first.

This past weekend, I spent 3 days in Indianapolis for the Midwest Model European Conference. It is exactly how it sounds – it is a model EU. Our schools were divided into delegations – the countries we would represent. Ball State had two delegations: The Netherlands and Sweden. Within the delegation, I was playing Jan Balkenende – the Prime Minister from the Netherlands. This was an interesting role for me to play, because to be frank: I had no idea what I was doing there.

The heads of state from each delegation meet as the European Council. This is the body that proposes legislation, but does not make it. Instead, there are discussion topics that all members [attempt] to reach consensus on. I can honestly say after sitting in no fewer than 8 hours of these sessions that people have no clue what they are talking about. They’re supposed to be representing the views of the countries they are representing: they are not supposed to put their on views into it at all.

This became highly apparent when a directive from the Commission came through while we were have a plenary session with our Foreign Ministers. This directive called for ALL [without exception] European member states to take in prisoners from Guantanamo Bay once it was closed. This directive also had numerous points to go along with it, stating that once the member state took in the prisoner, the nation was to try and charge them with crimes. However, in this directive, it even stated that the United States had not been able to find any evidence to try them. So… why would another European state do this? It’s beating a dead horse.

That was what I had to deal with in the conference.

A lot of time is spent socializing with your delegates outside the conference, so often we would walk to downtown Indianapolis to catch dinner or go to the bar. In order for us to go downtown, we had to walk by the state Capitol building. At first, we noticed there were a lot of people walking back from the direction of the Capitol. After further investigation, we found they were members of the Tea Party and they had been picketing all afternoon. They held up signs that said “Palin ’12,” the ubiquitous “Don’t Tread On Me,” and my favorite “FREDOM LOST IS FOREVER LOST” (yes, that is how they spelled freedom). Being such a strong liberal, I must say I was rather uncomfortable. I wanted nothing more than to stop and question them to find where they are getting the information they spew, but I refrained. I wouldn’t want to cause a scene.

The next day was my favorite though: they were back, but this time with rifles strapped to their backs. I’m sorry, I appreciate the fact you have freedom of speech and the right to bear arms, but is strapping a rifle to your back while at a protest in downtown Indianpolis at the State Capitol necessary? If that protest became hostile, I would not want to be downtown at that point for fear of being shot – and I know I would since I have an Obama pin on my bag I was carrying.

I guess the point of this blog was to show what I had to deal with this weekend: stupidity. Stupidity in politics. I know it’s rather unconventional, but I will post another one in relation to a news article later this afternoon.

The Forgotten Branch Of The Government

In the media, we often hear about the Executive and Legislative branches – especially since we have Obama in office and Health Care reform passed.

So it’s not often at all that we hear about the Judicial branch. There haven’t been any remarkably controversial or huge supreme court cases on the docket, so the news around them have been rather slow. Honestly, the last time there was any significant coverage on the Supreme Court was when Sotomayor was appointed to the bench.

While there isn’t any significant news going on right now, a story caught my attention on the Huffington Post.

Justice Stevens is currently 90 years old and plans on retiring during Obama’s term so he may appoint another liberal. I honestly had not thought about that initially, but it makes sense. Most hard-hitting cases that set a very strong course of precedence are normally split 5-4. As it stands, there are currently 4 liberals sitting on the Supreme Court – with Justice Kennedy deciding the vote (being a moderate).

I’m sure that when Justice Stevens retires, there will be much criticism from those (Republicans – I’m assuming) who feel that this is not correct protocol. Anything that happens in this administration is criticized, despite the fact that the same thing has happened in every administration prior to this.  I see absolutely nothing wrong with it – I think it is the only way to do it. If you want to have things put through and set into law, there needs to be justices that will support your decisions. It would make no sense if you were a Liberal president who appoints a Republican – that is completely defeating the purpose.

We’ll see though when Justice Stevens retires and who will be picked. The Huffington Post article goes through a few possibles, with Elena Kegan (Solicitor General of the US) being the frontrunner. Only time will tell, but I suspect it will be rather soon.