i’m heading to an event this afternoon, “hispanic leaders host judicial briefing on john g. roberts and the hispanic community,” hosted by hispanics for a fair judiciary, an off-shoot of alliance for justice, which hosts the web site supremecourtwatch.org.

i am interested in speaking with hispanics who may not subscribe to the above-mentioned group’s views on roberts, and found your blog while looking for alternative viewpoints.

if you or any of your regular posters are interested in being intervieed by phone this afternoon for a story in tomorrow’s express-nwes, i would be appreciative.

“John Roberts’ Record: A Snapshot of Where We Are Now.Read the Report” is a brief three and a half page report from alliance for justice that reasonably sums up the concerns of the group that will be speaking today, which includes u.s. rep. charlie gonzalez; prof. reynaldo a. valencia, from st. mary’s school of law; victor landa of southwest voter research education project, luis figueroa, a policy analyst with mexican-american legal defense fund and deece eckstein or people for american way.

i can be reached at either of the two numbers below. the discussion is at 4:30 p.m. texas time, and should last about an hour. i should be back at my desk by 6 at the latest. if you get my voice mail, please leave a return phone number and i’ll call you right back.

i cannot take calls later than 7:30-8 p.m. for deadline. respondents are also welcome to send me an email, but it must include a phone number so that i can verify the sender. we do not include anonymous quotes, so please do not respond if you’re not interested in speaking on the record.

thanks again,

tracy idell hamilton
staff writer,
san antonio express-news
thamilton@express-news.net
210-250-3173 desk
210-859-9136 cell

One more time, It is my understanding that decisions made by the court set and change laws every day.

Things evolve all of the time, and judges have their agendas as well.

Come election time, we find out who is conservative and who is not. Many judges receive financial and vote support for their campaigns.

Personally, I choose democratic ‘criminal’ judges at times and normally I pick conservative judges for other seats.

But yes, HP, some judges have ‘clouded’ judgements and I do not agree with that. Clouded judgements are not so good.

Interesting.

I deleted your last two comments.

I think Michael’s point, of which I agree with him, is that it is judicial activism for a judge to let her/his personal views cloud his/her judgement on cases in front of him. Those personal views can be religious or secular, either way, if they cloud her/his judgement, and s/he allows them to have an influence on what is before her/him, judicial activism will result.

Michael, you quoted where I wrote, “what is wrong with siding with life and practicing one’s freedom of religion”, and I assume you understood this to mean that this makes one a judicial activist.

I believe presidents appoint justices generally according to their platforms, so I think there will always be these types of struggles between so called liberal judges and conservative judges.

Sometimes judges don’t have a precedant ‘yet’ to refer to and that is why they make ‘new’ decisions as ‘new’ things arise.

“will a justices religious beliefs interfere with his ability to interpret the constitution”.

Possibly, but what can be so wrong with siding with life and making an attempt for reducing unecessary abortions? Is there a law against one practicing his freedom of religion?

You just defined a judicial activist. And this is the problem I have with many people arguing against these liberal activist judges. It is not the “activist” part that bothers them it is the liberal part. When a judge ignores legal precedant and decides an issue because he feels it is right that is activism.

I would take that as a compliment, as you know, both you and I have our disagreements, but I do agree with many of your views.

It’s a heck of a lot better agreeing with many of your views than that of Hillary Clinton and what the Clinton administration mostly stood for!

“will a justices religious beliefs interfere with his ability to interpret the constitution”.

Possibly, but what can be so wrong with siding with life and making an attempt for reducing unecessary abortions? Is there a law against one practicing his freedom of religion?

I believe Reagan is a good example of a political leader who was led by his ideology and convictions:

“Reagan was a committed Christian from his childhood, and frequently addressed Christian groups. He argued that communism’s atheistic worldview was one of its worst features”.

I agree with your point, and there certainly is a level of reasonable questions. However, Democrats are getting close, very close, to crossing that line. They sometimes seem to imply that it is not possible to be impartial when you have deeply held religious views. In other words, getting really close to concluding that a devout Catholic can not be a Supreme Court justice.

For now, we can add this as yet another reason why the liberal ‘living constitution’ judicial philosophy should be abandoned. It politicizes the court more and more, and may cause liberals to cross lines they should not cross.