Thursday, October 02, 2008

Supreme Court decisions I disagree with

So today my Constitutional Law professor what Supreme Court decision we disagreed with. I thought for a couple of seconds...and came up with two. Roe v. Wade, and Morrison.
Everyone knows about the first. The second is a famous case, but only for those who follow Supreme Court decisions.
So I was surprised when, this afternoon, I listened to both Palin and Biden answer interview questions about Supreme Court decisions they disagree with.
Of course Palin answered with Roe v. Wade, and then went on to call herself a Federalist (and so she disagrees with non-Federalist cases). Biden spoke about the Morrison case.
Biden spent a good deal of time and effort on a violence against women law. He collected a ton of information about how damaging gender-based crime (rape, etc.) harms people and the economy in general. Part of the study done to pass this law included the fact that women were being treated unfairly at the local level, and states, on an individual basis, were not doing enough to protect women against rape. The federal law would improve conditions for victims of rape. Congress passed the law.
The Supreme Court found it unconstitutional. Constitutional scholars were surprised--I'm not going to try to explain Constitutional Law in one blog post, but their decision was unexpected.
The name of the Supreme Court case is United States v. Morrison.
Look it up for the ugly details.
In any case, I was surprised to hear that Biden had been deeply involved in getting this law passed.
By the way, the Republican party controls the Supreme Court right now--7 of the 9 judges were put there by Republican presidents. Just in case you were wondering.
Now the question you should be asking is this--if 7 of the 9 are Republican, why is Roe v. Wade still law?
Something to think about.

1 comment:

Jenni said...

I'll have to do some reading, but this is a very thought-provoking posting topic. :)