This editorial in the Washington Post reminded me that when the Supreme Court begins their session (on the first Monday in October) they will be deciding whether the District of Columbia's handgun ban is in violation of the 2nd amendment. In the meantime, national Democrats like Al Gore and John Kerry have run away from gun control as fast as they could even while they lose long held Democratic states like West Virginia.

This could be very, very bad for Hillary Clinton, or she might squeak by. The squeaking scenario entails that both of her husband's appointees to the court rule against the District. That's not a likely scenario. Far more likely is that both of the very liberal appointees, Justices Breyer and Ginsburg, rule with the gun control lobby either with the majority or in a minority.

There's a new Quinnipiac University Poll out that holds a few surprises, as one can tell from the title of the release announcing the results: Voters Back Supreme Court Limit On School Deseg 3 - 1 Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; Approval Of Congress Drops To Lowest Point Ever. I proceed with my usual caveats to you about poll methodology. Quinnipiac has both the methodology and the poll questions posted at the link above. They historically have done a pretty good job -- I encourage everyone to read the release in its entirety.

The Supreme Court response is particularly notable - the libs and most Democrats in Congress called the vote to limit desegregation a strike-down of Brown v. Board of Education and a sign that "we've reached an Orwellian state". That's not what the voters think, be they Republicans, Democrats, or Independents:

By a 71 - 24 percent margin, American voters agree with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that public schools may not consider an individual's race when deciding which students are assigned to specific schools, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today. Republican voters agree with the decision 79 - 17 percent, while Democrats agree 64 - 30 percent and independent voters agree 71 - 24 percent, the independent Quinnipiac University poll finds.

And Congress hits a new low, even among the Dems:

In a pretty remarkable moment of candor, Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer told an audience that he was going to unilaterally revise the "advice and consent" clause (Article II, Section 2, Clause 2) of the U.S. Constitution:

"We should reverse the presumption of confirmation," Schumer told the American Constitution Society convention in Washington. "The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito."

In a way this has just verbally "codified" the Democrats' position since the Reagan administration. They think that when a Republican is president, the Democrats should be able to submit judicial candidates that meet their requirements to the president, then they get to appoint them after confirmation hearings.

That's not the way it is supposed to work. The president nominates, the Senate advises and consents, and the president appoints. It has also been held that the Senate's consent isn't final. After the Senate votes to confirm, the president can deliberate further, or can drop the nomination without appointing that particular nominee. Could the opposite also be true -- if the Senate bases its opposition on pure ideology, could the president then ignore the consent clause? Not under present case law, but what if this latest "constitutional crisis" goes further?

When our Founding Fathers wrote and ratified the Constitution, the main elements that were of most import were the inherent freedoms of speech, the press and religion. On a par with those freedoms, they intended for there to be a series of checks and balances so that no branch of the government grew too big and powerful. The Legislative Branch (Congress) makes the laws, the Executive Branch (the president) signs them into law after review and the Judicial Branch (Supreme Court) interprets them or decides the constitutionality of each. It's a process that has worked for over two hundred years and has worked well.

Enter those two judicial geniuses Senators Arlen Specter (RINO-PA) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). They don't think the newest members of the court are doing things exactly as they would like and they want to question them about it.

First Specter:

"There are things he has said, and I want to see how well he has complied with it," Specter said, singling out Roberts.

Specter is an attorney and as such knows exactly what the decisions mean and how they complied with what John Roberts told the Judiciary Committee. Specter, as is his wont, is carrying water for his Democratic brethren and handing the Democrats one hell of a campaign issue. Thank you Senator Specter.

Now Durbin:

"Certainly Justice Roberts left a distinct impression of his service as chief justice. And his performance on the court since, I think, has been in conflict with many of the statements he has made privately, as well as to the committee," said Durbin, who was unaware of Specter's idea.

"They are off to a very disturbing start, these two new justices. I am afraid before long they will call into question some of the most established laws and precedents in our nation."

This is not just politically annoying, it is chilling.

Contrary to the title of this article, the Democrats are not so much "rethinking" abortion, as deciding how much of an emphasis to place on it. They're still the party of abortion, but they'd like to be known as the party of "family planning".

The Democrats' public positioning on abortion has been evolving for many years beyond a pure rights-based philosophy to a more nuanced view that takes greater account of many Americans' deeply conflicted feelings while still solidly supporting the principle that women should have the choice of aborting a pregnancy. Bill Clinton won the White House in 1992 with promises he would seek to make abortion "safe, legal and rare."

The party has recently gone further. In the last election, Democrats embraced anti-abortion candidates, at least on the state and local level. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., an abortion opponent, was one of the Democrats' marquee candidates in 2006. And aggressive recruiting of anti-abortion candidates for rural conservative districts was a key component of party leaders' strategy to re take the House.

This is interesting because Roe v. Wade is hanging on by a thread. Specifically, Justice Stevens' thread, as he will be 88 years old in 2008. Unfortunately for NARAL, he can't live forever.

Reversing their earlier ruling in April, the Supreme Court will listen to a case brought by a prisoner of war from the Guantanamo detention center. Scotusblog has the details:

In a startling turn of events in the legal combat over the war on terrorism, the Supreme Court on Friday agreed to reconsider the appeals in the Guantanamo Bay detainee cases. It vacated its April 2 order denying review of the two packets of cases. The Court then granted review, consolidated the cases, and said they would be heard in a one-hour argument in the new Term starting Oct. 1. Such a switch by the Court -- from denial to rehearing and new argument and decision -- may not have occurred since 1947, in Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495, legal sources said Friday.

Either way, this will be a landmark case. Either President Bush's approach to enemy combatants being held at Guantanamo will be justified or the Democrats and liberals who have attacked that approach as being in contravention of basic human rights will be very happy indeed.

Count me among those who don't lie awake at night worrying about violations of human rights at Guantanamo. We know that there are some very bad people there, and if they were out and loose, many would be plotting our death and destruction. The point of the camp it seems to me is to first and foremost get intelligence, and only after that to deliver justice.

The big question is whether the courts one remaining moderate, justice Kennedy, will go queasy on Bush's attempt to prosecute the war on terror. It was Justices Kennedy and Stevens that appeared to change their minds since April on whether to hear this case.

Four years ago, affirmative action dominated news headlines as the Supreme Court examined the issue on college campuses. Then-Justice Sandra Day O'Connor gave colleges 25 more years to continue race-based admissions policies.

Now the court has revisited race, and has ruled in a 5-4 decision against using race to affect enrollment in public schools.

"The decision in cases affecting schools originated in Louisville, Kentucky and Seattle could imperil similar plans in hundreds of districts nationwide," NPR reported, "and it leaves public school systems with a limited arsenal to maintain racial diversity."

I am curious to know how the presidential candidates will respond to this decision. John Edwards, for instance, has frequently focused on race, whether in his "Two Americas" speeches or in discussing Hurricane Katrina, while Rudy Giuliani, when he was New York City mayor, seemed to approve of placing Big Apple public schools under centralized authority (his own).

Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has criticized racism among Republicans in the past (such as her "plantation" speech), while Barack Obama has discussed race as an important element in a melting-pot nation, one that can bring people together, not draw them apart.

The Supreme Court has given these candidates, and others, a chance to address the issues of race, education, and opportunity in this country. Who will take it, and who will not?

On Monday the Supreme Court eased rules on political ads targeting specific candidates in the weeks before an election (yet another blow that controversial campaign finance law President Bush signed while holding his nose). You can bet within minutes of the Supremes' decision, the NRA, Sierra Club, Emily's List and dozens of other advocacy groups were firing up their media machines.

The ruling will make it easier for them to jump into the political fray as an election nears without worrying that their ads could land them in prison, and the airwaves will almost certainly be more crowded with direct political appeals identifying politicians by name. ...

Indeed, said Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive vice president, if candidates made claims that angered his organization "within 60 days of an election, you can expect to have the NRA on the air, in their face, with an ad."

"On the air, in their face, with an ad." Sigh. It's gonna be a long election season....

Today, the Supreme Court ruled that a school system can not use a diversity plan based on race to determine the school population. In other words, there is no more busing. Again, the vote was 5 to 4.

There was a day that busing was needed to integrate the segregated school systems around the country. The costs of the transportation was high and could be better spent on improved education.

The court left the door open for extreme situations.

This is the end of an era but it is certainly time to move on. The Supreme Court has made the right decision.

SCOTUSblog is reporting on a major decision on the constitutionality of voluntary school racial policy programs. The 5-4 decision strikes down the racial integration programs in two school districts, Seattle and Louisville.

This is a big decision, and critics are going to claim that it violates Brown v. Board of Education. But I don't believe that's not true. In arguments before the Court it was made clear that these two programs were not ordered as a remedy to existing problems by any court. The school districts involved undertook the racial integration programs because they thought that it was a good idea -- not because there was any actual racial segregation policies in place in the two districts. In fact, there was no racial integration policy problems at all in Seattle; and Louisville, once under court order to integrate, was no longer under that court order. In a way, it's a political correctness case. Racial integration is a common good so it must be forced upon people, even if there is no existing problem with current local policies.

The parents involved in this case saw that the assignment of their children to schools was arbitrary and unnecessary. They sued, and won.

Therefore, this decision has no bearing at all in cases where the courts have determined that there exists discriminatory racial preference policies in a particular school district and that a remedy is applicable and so ordered. It also has no effect on the ability to bring a complaint against a school district that does have an illegal racial segregation policy as determined by Brown.

Senator John McCain has been in a serious free fall for several weeks now. It started with his backing of the immigration bill and today continued with the Supreme Court taking their collective whacks at the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill.

Things are so bad that the former front runner is now looking at a total collapse of his campaign:

THE former presidential front-runner, John McCain, may drop out of the 2008 race by September if his fundraising dries up and his poll ratings continue to drop, according to Republican insiders.

The speculation, vigorously denied by McCain's camp, is sweeping Republican circles after a disastrous few weeks in which the principled Arizona senator has clashed with the party's conservative base on immigration and also alienated independent voters by backing President George W Bush's troop surge in Iraq.

It would have been hard to imagine McCain losing this much (only 8%?) support in so short a time. Only three or four months ago, he and Giuliani were battling it out and McCain had a good shot at the nomination. A double whammy of conservative backlash over illegal immigration and the meteoric rise of Fred Thompson has all but destroyed any chance the Senator from Arizona had.

The sad thing is that McCain is a good guy, he just failed miserably when it came to reading the ire of the conservative base on the immigration issue.

Update (2148): McCain says those who think he's dropping out are "smoking something":

In another nail biter, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled (5+1 to 3) that the school principal is still BOSS. The case is commonly known as the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case. The legal name of the case is Morse v Frederick (06-278). Kenneth Starr was the attorney for the principal of the school. Chief Justice Roberts, Justices Scalia, Alito, Kennedy, and Thomas joined completely in the decision. Justice Breyer agreed in the judgment and dissented in part. The dissenters were Stevens, Souter and Ginsburg.

This was a Roberts decision and it will allow school superintendents and principals to keep order in the schools. In ruling for the school system, Chief Justice Roberts wrote that schools may:

"take steps to safeguard those entrusted to their care from speech that can reasonably be regarded as encouraging illegal drug use."

Justice Breyer supported the majority's decision but not all their concepts. In supporting Principal Morse, Breyer relied on the defense of "qualified immunity" which he defined as follows:

"The defense of qualified immunity requires courts to enter judgment in favor of a government employee unless the employee's conduct violates clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. The defense is designed to protect all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violated the law."

Mark this down as a common sense decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In what is surely not great timing for the McCain campaign, the Supreme Court just took another swipe at his signature campaign finance bill, simultaneously weakening it, and reminding Republican voters what John McCain has been up to since his 2000 presidential run.

The court, split 5-4, upheld an appeals court ruling that an anti-abortion group should have been allowed to air ads during the final two months before the 2004 elections. The law unreasonably limits speech and violates the group's First Amendment rights, the court said.

The decision could lead to a bigger role for corporations, unions and other interest groups in the 2008 presidential and congressional elections.

The majority was the usual conservative 5 joined by an increasingly conservative Kennedy. Interestingly enough Kennedy, along with Scalia and Thomas would have gone even further and demolished the 2003 ruling upholding this same law. Newly appointed justices Roberts and Alito held back from going that far. This is another indication that Kennedy is becoming less of a swing voter and more of a conservative.

The big winners here of course are the First Amendment, issue groups, their political consultants and the media companies who get paid for running these ads. The big losers are incumbent politicians. I'm quite happy with this result but a little annoyed that the first amendment wins only 5-4 in the highest court of the land.

The ruling is here. We have a good summary by Ed at Bench Memos, and this was tipped off to me by fellow Ohioan Brain Shavings.

First, let me say that while I am pro-life I do consider partial-birth abortion a particularly gruesome and disgusting procedure that should certainly be banned. Details on the procedure itself are in the ruling. I consider this law and this ruling a victory for humanity itself.

Politically, the interesting thing is that, for now, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is the swing vote on the Supreme Court, is not in favor of throwing out Roe vs. Wade. Kennedy signed on to the Casey decision which in the early '90s upheld Roe for the most part with additional possibility for regulation. This is as expected, but it was made clear in the ruling when Kennedy applied the previous Casey decision to the current question.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia filed a concurring opinion which made it clear that they were not only in favor of chucking partial-birth abortion, but Roe and Casey as well. Newly appointed Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito did NOT sign on to that concurring opinion. Either they did not agree or they are holding their cards.

It's clear that there will be no big changes in the abortion law with the current makeup of the court. But conservatives can cheer that President Bush did replace one swing vote (Sandra Day O'Connor) with a solid conservative (Alito).

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously against unions using employee dues for causes they don't consent to:

WASHINGTON -- In a setback for unions that represent public employees, the Supreme Court ruled today that states could bar them from using forced dues for political purposes unless individual employees gave their explicit approval.

...On the one hand, unions can require employees to pay fees or dues to cover the cost of collective bargaining, at least in states that authorize "union shop" rules.

However, dissident employees cannot be forced to pay for political contributions. In 1977, the court said dissidents had a free-speech right not to pay for political causes they opposed.

That's big for the unions and the Democrats they traditionally support. The teachers unions almost always throw their money at Democrats because they know that they will vote more money for the states and give them more money for raises. Up until now, the unions could donate money to any cause they wanted regardless of what the rank and file wanted. They had free reain to spend and spend for candidates that union leadership supported and now they don't.

This is a huge win for the GOP as it further erodes the power unions have. The labor unions have been shrinking at a steady rate throughout most of the nation and the white-collar unions were continuing to grow. Now their political clout has been reduced.

You know that this was a bad law if even Ruth Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer voted with Antonin Scalia, John Roberts and Samuel Alito.