Archive for Tag “judges”

Panelists advise Obama on picking judges

Monday, March 23, 2009 by Tom Bowden

I recently attended a Heritage Foundation panel discussion, “Advice to President Obama on Judicial Nominations,” featuring prominent legal commentators. They touched on a variety of factors that go into choosing judicial nominees these days: collegiality, “humility,” diversity, judicial experience, scholarship, age, religion, gender, geographical roots, and so forth. Interestingly, however, none of the panelists suggested ascertaining a potential nominee’s commitment to the basic political principles on which this nation was founded. The individual rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness–apparently, these are regarded as irrelevant in choosing judges, or perhaps too abstract to form a basis for evaluation.

I disagree. The Founders’ wisdom is as true today as it was two centuries ago. Protecting individual rights is the fundamental reason why governments (and judges) exist. As I have argued elsewhere, “America desperately needs a new generation of judges who understand that their function is not to uphold social opinions but to protect our rights.”

The panelists were Walter Dellinger III (Duke law professor, former Solicitor General of the United States), Stuart Taylor, Jr. (author and contributing editor to Newsweek), and Jonathan Adler (Case Western law professor). The program was chaired by Edwin Meese III (attorney general under Ronald Reagan).

Send a comment to the Author