ConfirmThem

By DanCT Posted in Circuit Courts — Comments () / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Senator Hatch (R-UT) made some excellent points Wednesday on the Senate floor about the distinction between law and politics. In the process he disrobed much of the Democrats' attack:

Politics is often about results, about winners and losers, and involves politicians asserting their will. Law is about the process of reaching results, about what the law requires, and involves judges using judgment. Politics and law are two very different things, and our liberty depends on preserving that difference. So if you hear critics of judicial nominees talking only in the language of politics, you know something is wrong.

In the last day or two, for example, critics of the nominees before us have reduced them to soundbites, checklists, and litmus tests. Senators begin sentences with phrases such as she ruled that…… or she ruled for……. Mentioning only those results, without exploring how a judge reached those results, amounts to applying political criteria to a judicial nominee, and that is fundamentally wrong. Sometimes the law requires results we may not like, results that may even sound dramatic. Mentioning the political results without the judicial process leading to those results misleads people about what judges do and how to choose the rights ones. Or the critics will characterize what a judge said rather than tell us what she actually said. ... Or the critics will quote other critics. Imagine if the only thing someone knew about you came from what your critics or enemies said about you. That picture would be distorted, incomplete, and just plain false.... I hope our fellow citizens will be very skeptical of critics who make a political case against a judicial nominee, skeptical if the case against a nominee is limited to soundbites about results or characterizations by third parties.

Very well put, Senator.