Honestly, can these people walk and chew gum at the same time? At the very least they should consider banning their members from using technology.
Whoops. The Republican National Committee (RNC) has apparently inadvertently released its list of talking points on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.
Included on the released list were a few hundred influential Republicans who were the intended recipients of the talking points. Unfortunately for the RNC, so were members of the media. [emphasis mine]
h/t: The Hill
Click on the link for the predictable. After reading them it’s easy to see which point against Judge Sotomayor will generate the most faux outrage.
To be clear, Republicans do not view this nomination without concern. Judge Sotomayor has received praise and high ratings from liberal special interest groups. Judge Sotomayor has also said that policy is made on the U.S. Court of Appeals.
Let’s debunk this nonsense right away.
“She’s not wrong,” said Jeffrey Segal, a professor of law at Stony Brook University. “Of course they make policy… You can, on one hand, say Congress makes the law and the court interprets it. But on the other hand the law is not always clear. And in clarifying those laws, the courts make policy.”
As Segal noted, one of the most recent cases heard by the Supreme Court — itself a court of appeals — involves the strip search of a 13-year-old who school officials believed was carrying ibuprofen. “There is no clear knowing statement whether officials can be sued for that sort of behavior,” he noted. “So when justices come up with a decision on that, they would be making policy.”
Eric Freedman, a law professor at Hofstra University, was equally dismissive of this emerging conservative talking point. “She was saying something which is the absolute judicial equivalent of saying the sun rises each morning. It is not a controversial proposition at all that the overwhelming quantity of law making work in the federal system is done by the court of appeals… It is thoroughly uncontroversial to anyone other than a determined demagogue.”
Freedman, who was a classmate of Sotomayor’s at Yale Law School, noted that while the Supreme Court will decide roughly 90 cases a year, the court of appeals will weigh in on “many thousands.” They are, indeed, “the final stop for the most important decisions in the federal system.” They also are the forums where vagaries and gray areas of the law go to be clarified.
“One element of judging, obviously, is issuing precedent,” Freedman explained. “But if the thing were squarely disposed of by existing precedent they probably wouldn’t go to the court of appeals for it. Their lawyers would say, forget it… So this is where you get clarification for cases without precedent.”
Not that I expect these statements to deter Republicans, who seem unable to function in anything other than full reactionary mode. They have become a joke of a party – a party not only completely incapable of having serious discussions on serious issues (tele-prompters and mustard, anyone?), but also a party incapable of sending a flippin’ email to the right people.
I am the new coordinator for the Delaware chapter of Drinking Liberally. Unfortunately, the national chapter has not been able to get their act together to give me access to the web interface that will allow me to send a real announcement to all chapter members. So…