The Cory Booker Spectacle

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Chaser:

Meanwhile, Democrats torpedoed the nomination of Patrick Bumatay, an openly gay man, for the 9th Circuit.

20 Comments for “The Cory Booker Spectacle”

  1. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Nomination/confirmation of judges in the mold of Justices Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Scalia and Thomas — highly ideological judges who take a narrow view of unenumerated rights, oppose decisions in the Griswold line, and will do what it takes to roll back decisions protecting “the right to be left alone” — is a direct consequence of the 2016 election.

    As much as I hate to see the expansion of individual freedom that resulted from the Griswold line be eroded/reversed by conservative activists appointed to the federal courts, that is what will happen over the next decade or two, and gays and lesbians who want to preserve what we have gained will have to work within the constraints imposed by that reality.

    Because Lawrence, Obergefell and other decisions protecting equal treatment under the law for gays and lesbians are grounded in the Griswold line, we will now have to stop looking to the courts and look instead to the political arena alone. That is not a development I would have hoped for, but we are well-positioned to fight in the political arena after the long political fight over marriage equality.

    Conservative ideologues have been after Griswold and its progeny for the last half-century. That’s nothing new. What is new is that nomination/confirmation of non-ideological conservative judges to the higher courts — Justices Kennedy, O’Connor, Stevens, Souter, and even Rehnquist or Roberts, come to mind — has become politically impossible for Republican Presidents.

    In conservative legal circles, Neomi Rao is consider a likely candidate for future elevation to the Court, either when Justice Ginsburg’s seat becomes available, or Justice Breyer’s. That pretty much tells the story.

  2. posted by Jorge on

    It’s always random what you get from Sen. Booker.

    You know, I don’t remember anyone on the left since Sonia Sotomayor being asked such probing questions about their values and beliefs. I think if anything there should be more of it. If we demanded more of liberal judges not to let their personal beliefs get in the way of their jobs, then maybe we’d have not had such a fiasco of a decision as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s decision requiring the legal recognition of gay marriages in that state.

    I take that back. It’s not a maybe. It simply would not have happened. The problem isn’t Booker’s pandering disbelief. It’s everyone else’s honor system.

  3. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    … then maybe we’d have not had such a fiasco of a decision as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s decision requiring the legal recognition of gay marriages in that state …

    If I recall correctly, you’ve said several times that Obergefell was wrongly decided under the US Constitution. In this comment, you seem to be saying the Goodridge was wrongly decided under the Massachusetts Constitution.

    How do you feel about Griswold? Was that wrongly decided as well?

    That’s the standard conservative argument.

    I don’t agree with the conservative position, but I acknowledge that a large number of conservatives reject the idea that private citizens have a “right to privacy” — sometimes called “the right to be left alone” — in personal matters, while endorsing the proposition that businesses should be entirely free from government regulation.

    It strikes me as backward. It seems to me that private citizens should be free from government interference in their private lives (except to the extent that regulating private behavior is necessary for the public good, and the government presents a clear and compelling case that regulation is required for that reason), but that businesses operating in the public sphere should be subject to reasonable regulation.

    • posted by Jorge on

      In this comment, you seem to be saying the Goodridge was wrongly decided under the Massachusetts Constitution.

      I’ve never read the Massachusetts Constitution. I have, however read Goodridge, and I remember it well enough to know that it reasoned that the basis of marriage as a socially stabilizing arrangement is based on… US* civil marriage.

      I suppose it’s possible that the Massachusetts Constitution is illogical enough to actually allow such an opinion to pass the smell test, but I doubt it.

      *: Possibly Massachusetts civil marriage, which would be even more loony a rationale.

      How do you feel about Griswold? Was that wrongly decided as well?

      That’s the standard conservative argument.

      I’m not a conservative, so I wouldn’t know that.

      I think Griswold is a tossup.

      My concern is that when one finds a legal right in one situation that is perfectly appropriate in a traditional social sense, that then legal precedent is used to extend the benefits that should only apply to traditional precedent. Now that I think of it, I think a lot of the right to privacy cases might be based more on traditional social values than on legal values. That is, the reliance of the public on certain laws to police behavior and police the government. But it doesn’t follow that the social contract itself is a source from which one can infer new constitutional rights.

      I think those cases that inferred new rights arising out of social precedents rather than legal precedents should probably be overturned. So in other words, I do not believe we should be overturning Griswold, then Eisenstadt, then Roe and Obergefell, and so forth. I think we should start from the more recent cases, to correct the wrong inferences, and work our way backwards if need be.

    • posted by Jorge on

      I don’t agree with the conservative position, but I acknowledge that a large number of conservatives reject the idea that private citizens have a “right to privacy” — sometimes called “the right to be left alone” — in personal matters, while endorsing the proposition that businesses should be entirely free from government regulation.

      It strikes me as backward. It seems to me that private citizens should be free from government interference in their private lives (except to the extent that regulating private behavior is necessary for the public good, and the government presents a clear and compelling case that regulation is required for that reason), but that businesses operating in the public sphere should be subject to reasonable regulation.

      Well, let me put it this way.

      Unlawful immigrants, for example, have no right to be in this country. The federal government can break into their homes and remove them. But the feds don’t always do so. So when a person we suffer to remain in their homes comes to the government for other things like education and medical care (granted those are usually state and municipal governments) the government is obligated then and there not to discriminate. Those government agencies must give unlawful immigrants the equal protection of all the other laws that would otherwise apply to them.

      My view on the matter is that people’s personal matters have less bearing when they enter the public square. In other words I don’t strictly believe people have a right to privacy so much as I believe that whenever the government decides to do nothing to a person in the private sphere, they have more of a duty to do nothing in the public sphere.

      I of course believe in government regulation of business practices.

  4. posted by JohnInCA on

    This is the same woman who, five years after Lawrence v. Texas, was still so upset about it she wrote an article complaining that Kennedy was wrong nine ways to Sunday. And then after Windsor she did it again.

    So sure. She has “formidable intellect and analytical skills”. That she put to use arguing that gay people should be felons in Texas.

    Seriously folks, is “judges opposed to Lawrence shouldn’t be elevated” really too high of a bar?

    • posted by Jorge on

      No. It was 6-3 decision.

      • posted by Jorge on

        Whoops. I meant yes.

        • posted by JohnInCA on

          And Dred Scott v Sanford was 7-2. Am I supposed to not condemn someone, today, who thinks that was rightly decided?

          How about Korematsu v. United States. 6-3. Should I be praising someone that agrees with the way that turned out?

          Fact is, the SCOTUS as a whole and SCOTUS justices as individuals, gets things wrong. And I have no problem judging folks, harshely at times, for agreeing with the folks who got it wrong. Regardless of majority/minority status. Defending injustice is not a virtue.

  5. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Gregory T. Angelo: “The California Democrats are demanding in particular that Mr. Trump dump Patrick Bumatay . . . an assistant U.S. Attorney who . . . happens to be a 40-year old gay Filipino-American who believes in the original meaning of the Constitution.”

    What does Angelo expect? Bumatay is an originalist. The fact that Bumatay likes cock doesn’t change that, and he isn’t going to get much in the way of Democratic support.

    Angelo’s outrage outrageous that Democrats don’t support gay Republican nominees/appointees simply because they are gay is both typical of gay Republican shills and hypocritical. Can anyone think of a gay Democratic judicial nominee that Angelo supported? Or a gay Democrat running for any office? Even once?

    • posted by Mike King & David "TJ" Bauler on

      —original meaning of the Constitution

      Translation: I can read the minds of dead people.

  6. posted by Kosh III on

    Miller & Co: tell me again how the GOP would turn and be sooooo accepting?

    http://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bills/111/Bill/HB1369.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1j7qOJBqrlpLsP3wpA0EvEW8ZF0hBgEbCuGD0UaQfiTiQJEi-5PduFBtQ

    Tennessee GOP legislators attack the rights of gay people again as they seek to overturn marriage equality.

  7. posted by MB Bill on

    What the hell is wrong with Kansas? Republican legislators attempt to end LGBT marriages, claiming it’s a sacrament of the “Secular Humanism” religion: Read The Bill, please: http://kslegislature.org/li/b2019_20/measures/documents/hb2320_00_0000.pdf https://mobile.twitter.com/KansasEquality/status/1095850782958800896/photo/1 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/02/13/kansas-bills-say-same-sex-marriage-parody-marriage/2866045002/

  8. posted by MR Bill on

    Kansas Republicans enter a bill to define LGBT marriages as “Parody marriages” and a sacrament of the Secular Humanist religion: Equality Kansas says it’s “18 pages of insults”..I urge y’all to follow the link to the actual legislation in the USAToday article: you’ll have to fix the link: https: //www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/02/13/kansas-bills-say-same-sex-marriage-parody-marriage/2866045002/

    • posted by MR Bill on

      Ok, from the bill(again, fix the link to view)”WHEREAS, Secular humanism is also commonly referred to as
      26 postmodern western individualistic moral relativism, expressive
      27 individualism, and by other names and is centered on the unproven idea
      28 that there are no moral absolutes; and
      29 WHEREAS, The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning
      30 (LGBTQ) community is organized, full and has a daily code by which
      31 members may guide their daily lives, which makes it a denominational
      32 sect that is inseparably part of the religion of secular humanism; and
      33 WHEREAS, Instead of having a cross, the ten commandments icon, or
      34 star and crescent, the LGBTQ secular humanist community has the gay
      35 pride rainbow colored flag to symbolize its faith-based worldview; and
      36 WHEREAS, The ideas that “a person is born homosexual,” or that “a
      37 person can be born in the wrong body,” or that “a person can come out of
      38 an invisible closet and be baptized gay,” or that “to disagree with
      39 homosexual orthodoxy premises makes you a bigot” are a series of
      40 unproven faith-based assumptions and naked assertions that are implicitly
      41 religious and inseparably linked to the religion of secular humanism;”… http:
      //kslegislature.org/li/b2019_20/measures/documents/hb2320_00_0000.pdf

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      This kind of stuff is all the rage among Republicans this year. I think that Kansas is the third or fourth state in which bills of this sort have been introduced this year with significant backing from Republican legislators. We’ll see more of this as the year progresses, I suspect.

      The driving force behind this and similar bills is the hope/expectation that the Court will overturn Obergefell.

      In Wisconsin, I don’t think that Republicans have the balls to do something like this (Governor Evers would veto it, anyway, so what’s the point?) but the Republican legislative majority has blocked, and will continue to block, any and all attempts to repeal our state’s 2006 anti-marriage amendment. Nothing has changed in the Republican Party in Wisconsin. The party is as anti-equality as it has ever been.

      Flying a flag upside down is a universally recognized signal of distress (see USC Title 4, Chapter 1, § 8(a) as an example), and when Candidate Trump displayed the Rainbow flag upside down at a 2016 rally, he may have been more prescient than gay conservatives gave him credit for being.

      The Republican Party has become toxic.

      • posted by Jason on

        This bill is sponsored by 7 religious right Kansas Republicans out of a 125-member chamber split 84R-41D). But making is seem like it’s backed by the Kansas GOP, or the GOP generally, is good for ratings and fundraising on the left.

  9. posted by MDBuck on

    What was far more telling about this hearing was yet more confirmation of what a complete moron and hypocrite T-Bone Booker really is. Almost 60 years ago, the Dems were rightfully defending not having the religion of their candidate be an issue in the presidential election, to now having a dolt of a senator grilling a judicial nominee about hers (when he wasn’t asking her about if she hired any LGBT clerks, even though she has never been a jurist).

    But, hey, he’s black! That automatically means he’s brilliant in today’s Dem party. All these people have to do to win is run someone a little to the right of Marx and not based almost solely on their race and/or gender, and they can’t do it. My husband (a hardcore Dem) swears Trump is going to get re-elected if they don’t run someone who isn’t there because of their race or gender, and who isn’t a hardcore leftie. I fear he’s as right as when he predicted Trump would win last time.

    • posted by JohnInCA on

      Trump is going to get re-elected if they don’t run someone who isn’t there because of their race or gender

      Seeing as any non-white or female person would be accused of being there “because of their race or gender”, that’s basically saying that the Dems can only run straight white men if they want to win. And all carefully hidden behind “it’s not that we’re racist/sexist, it’s all those Republicans!”

      • posted by MDBuck on

        Pure rubbish. Given what intellectual lightweights Booker, Harris & the rest of the DNC clown car are, one can only naturally surmise they ain’t there because of anything other than race and/or gender. The DNC has some good talent out there – Hickenlooper & Raimondo are just two examples. Do yourselves – and the country – a huge favor & stop running these dimwits.

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