The Blue State

Emptying our judicial system

The right-wing attack against lawyers over the last 20 years has paid off.   The Supreme Court is facing a shortage of cases, notes Saturday's USA Today:

Justices are running well behind in filling their argument calendar forthe term that begins in the fall. They have accepted 18 cases, comparedwith 27 by this time last year and 32 in 2004.

There are probably a few reasons for this.  First, the new look Supreme Court, with the additions of Samuel Alito and John Roberts, has a new set of standards that it uses to decide whether to accept certain cases.  Also, we are at war.  Under Bush, Executive power, has increased overwhelmingly, meaning that less cases are accepted that have to do with government authority.  The court is clearly sending the message that they would rather stay away from that contentious issue, and instead let the Legislative Branch sort that one out.

Antonin Scalia's proudest moment

Antonin Scalia is once again exposing his reactionary outlook on things -- saying that his proudest moment of his Supreme Court experience was when he refused to recuse himself from a case involving his hunting pal Dick Cheney:

"For Pete's sake, if you can't trust your Supreme Court justice more than that, get a life.  I think the proudest thing I have done on the bench is not allow myself to be chased off that case."

The lawsuit was filed by environmental groups, claiming that the Administration let industry executives, such as Ken Lay, write Bush's energy policy.  As expected, Scalia voted in favor of the Administration on that one.