Thursday, March 29, 2012

The Consquences of Court-Side Cheerleeding at SCOTUS



As the Obamacare cases are now being deliberated by the Supreme Court of the United States, it is worth considering judicial ethics and proper public policy.

Associate Justice Elena Kagan refused to recuse herself from hearing the Obamacare cases, even though she was President Obama's first Solicitor General and her office formulated Obama Administration’s legal defense of the legislation. During her confirmation hearings before the Judiciary Committee, then Solicitor General Kagan swore that she abide by federal recusal standards (28 USC 455(b)(3)) which requires recusal when  a person has “served in governmental employment and in such capacity participated as counsel, adviser, or material witness concerning the proceeding or expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case or controversy.” ...


Since the Supreme Court refused to consider the merits of Kagan recusing herself from the Obamacare, the only Constitutional remedy is impeachment. But impeachment by the U.S. Senate is about as rare as rocking horse’s manure.  There might have been a campaign in the late 1950s and the 1960s to impeach Chief Justice Earl Warren, but the Senate has never conducted a trial of a Supreme Court Justice.  So it is inconceivable that trying to impeach Kagan for bad conduct would be successful. What is warranted is taking Constitutional duties seriously...
READ MORE at the DCBarroco website

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