Actively Defend the Constitution

i find the critics of this decision seem to leave out the fact that this case was in reference to the mccain fingold campaign finaince reform which on its face restricted speech prior to an election.
Our deceptive president is now threatened that free speech will now be available not just to the unions who greatly support the new critics. the double standard of you pundits is overwhelming now lets see if the banks big oil ect get to have their shot at putting tryth on the air ways. your tempting to silience a majority with your progressive agenda, be warned many americans are growing tired of this tyrannical government and we are now seeing our generations king George. This president is deceptive his adminstration is tryannical and they seek nothing but to silience and weaken a branch of government. We as americans will not stand for the constitution to be redefined by a marxist adminstration. before you define this plain ruling of the first ammendment check what is about to happen in this nation. we the people if silienced by this government have other options to regain our nation. the courts got it right the president lied to forward an agenda. Take our first ammendment rights away we will resort to our second ammendment constitutional right and duty to remove this government by force. the choice is your those of you in the leftist media. what will you do

I guess I need a clearer definition of judicial activism.

For what it's worth, Thomas Sowell (and unfortunately I can't remember which book this was from - it was either A Conflict of Visions, The Vision of The Anointed, or The Quest For Cosmic Justice) defined it as "the tendency to decide cases on grounds extrinsic to the Constitution."

I think it is when the judicial branch creates law.
For example someone claims to have had some previously undefined right violated, a judge upholds that this previously undefined right was indeed violated, and now it becomes a crime to violate this previously undefined right.

But in practice it just means that a decision didn't go your way, so you claim that there was judicial activism going on to diminish the significance of the decision.

It's whatever an ideologue says it is.

And that is what?

My literalism can be your activism and vice-versa...

I agree this is the BEST time to point out conservative hypocrisy on judicial activism. I mean there couldn't be a better time - like after Nov 2010?

Clarence Thomas was the only justice that voted for the proposition that all donors have an absolute right to make anonymous donations. He was concerned that not only would someone holding a opposing view boycott the business owners, but that they would be at risk of being killed by dangerous and crazed opponents of their views, such as radical gays demanding equal rights to marry, apparently willing to firebomb the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Interesting that Thomas finds it an invasion of one's privacy when it comes to revealing the names of donors. Apparently, the 1st amendment DOES imply a right to privacy after all, except when it comes to a woman's right to privately, and anonymously seek an abortion. Yeah, why don't abortion clinics call themselves popcorn factories instead? They can even sell red, white, & blue popcorn through the back door to be consistent. The word hypocrite fit's Thomas to a T. We already knew he was an intellectual lightweight, and liar from the Anita Hill spectacle. Any one of the five right-wingers could have made the decision go the other way. The fact that his vote was included implies that the actual vote was 4-4. With his vote included we cannot conclude this is an activist court, only that it's decision was decided by an immodest boob.

I'm not totally committed to this idea, but just for the sake of clarity let's try something.

What's the difference between an anonymous vote, and an anonymous donation?

Immodest Boob,

Drivel. The Constitution explicitly addresses freedom of expression. It is a reasonable question whether outlawing anonymity constitutes Congress' passing a law restricting that right. (The same amendment protects freedom of religion. I suppose you would have no problem with the Congress requiring you to officially declare your religious affiliations so that it could be published on the internet?) Roe v. Wade discovered an entire and theretofore unknown right floating, ghost-like, in emanations of penumbras.

And good luck trying to hang the "right" to an abortion on first amendment. I've read it over and over again, and it isn't in there.

Thank you for elevating the level of discourse on this blog to new heights of decency and germaneness.

The key point here is than every classical liberal "conservative" rejected Bork's rather absurd jurisprudence -- which in truth was as antithetical to the classical liberal jurisprudence of the Founder's as any other 20th century "modern".

Chemerinsky is just a really dishonest guy.

He's a genuine "nice guy" so lots of "conservatives" make excuses for him, but Chemerinsky's unprincipled ideology extends to being deeply unprincipled when it comes to the principle of not lying and the related academic "principle of charity" in argumentation and debate.

Chemerinsky is consistently dishonest in debate -- and hides this deep dishonesty behind a "nice guy" persona, that is genuine on a personal level but is fraudulent on the deeper level of treating people with principles arguments as persons worthy of engaging on a level of truth and honesty.

I believe the claim that Chemerinsky is being intellectually dishonest is a fair one. He claims that no agreed-upon definition of Judicial Activism exists, but that is only true to the extent that one is willing to entertain the more recently coined alternative definition of Judicial Activism proposed by the likes of Chemerinsky himself. To the conservatives who initially made the criticism the meaning of the phrase is quite clear, and surely Chemerinsky understands this. His trick is to pretend that this is not the case, to substitute a contrary definition, and then accuse the conservatives of inconsistency and hypocrisy for failing to declare their support for a philosophy they explicitly rejected from the onset.

It’s as if you held up a banana and said “I like bananas”, to which I respond “you have no clear definition of banana. I, for example, consider mud to be a banana, which fact PROVES that there is no clear definition for the word ‘banana’. Furthermore, I note that you do not like to eat mud, which makes you a liar! For shame!”

This is nothing more than a word game, a cheap debating trick, or, more precisely, sophistry.

You can call me a liar if you want, and I probably won't bother to sue you for libel. But you really should give an example of Chemerinsky's "consistently deep dishonesty" and "no principles all the time" caricature of this legal academic. You obviously know a lot more about politics and the law than Big Lie Chimp Chemerinsky. Thank you for elevating the level of discourse on this blog to new heights of decency and germaneness. That's a germ that I can live without.

Chereminsky is on talk radio all the time in SoCal.

Another commenter here has explained how Chereminsky's "judicial activism" schtick here is so bogus as to be patently dishonest.

Cheremeninsky constantly does this sort of this -- it's bad faith in argument of the worst kind.

Erwin Chemerinsky is well known for twisting every argument and every "principle" to the dictates of his leftist / anti-classic liberal agenda.

It's all politics and no principle all of the time for Chemerinsky, and no one should be surprised by his latest.

Chemerinsky is a living embodiment of what Hayek called the ideology of political expediency in rejection of stable rules of principle.

Come on Don. The disagreement isn't over whether unconstitutional extensions of government power should be sanctioned, and I think you know it's not - so don't pretend that it is. The disagreement is over what constitutes an unconstitutional extension of government power.

I and many others agree with you on the Citizen's United ruling. When I disagree with you on other rulings it's not because I disagree that unconstitutional extensions of government power should be checked by the court. I do agree that for this reason the use of "activist" as a perjorative is largely pointless. But this narrative, like so many narratives on here, does nothing but set up a false dichotomy that drags the discussion away from meaningful disagreements and towards specious good vs. evil grandstanding.

On Erwin C.'s column, read this post
http://keithburgess-jackson.typepad.com/blog/20...

Is it really "activism" when the Court interprets the plain text of the Constitution? I know there's no universal definition of judicial activism, but it seems that interpreting the plain text of the Constitution is the most central aspect of the Court's job. A more activist ruling would, say, usurp the legislative powers of Congress or extend rights or powers far beyond what's contemplated in the plain meaning of the Constitutional language (e.g., Wickard v. Filburn's extension of the Commerce Clause).

By that standard Citizens United isn't necessarily an "activist" decision.

I don't see how this is judicial activism either. As I see it the opposite ruling would have been judicial activism (granting congress a power it explicitly does not have).

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

It doesn't say "except for corporations."

Congress did make a law abridging the freedom of speech. Whether you like the ramifications or not, the court got this one right.