absolute POWER
CORRUPTS absolutely
THE ATTACK ON OUR COURTS by Al Gore
Excerpts from a speech for MoveOn PAC, April 27, 2005, Washington D.C. Full text is available at www.moveonpac.org
Four years and four months ago, the Supreme Court of the United States,
in a bitterly divided 5 to 4 decision, issued an unsigned opinion that the
majority cautioned should never be used as a precedent for any subsequent
case anywhere in the federal court system.
Their ruling conferred the presidency on a candidate who had lost the
popular vote, and it inflamed partisan passions that had already been
aroused by the long and hard-fought election campaign.
I couldn’t have possibly disagreed more strongly with the opinion that I
read shortly before midnight that evening, December 12, 2000. But I knew
what course of action best served our Republic.
Even though many of my supporters said they were unwilling to accept a
ruling which they suspected was brazenly partisan in its motivation, I went
before the American people less than 24 hours later to reaffirm the
bedrock principle that we are a nation of laws, not men. “There is a higher
duty than the one we owe to a political party,” I said. “This is America and
we put country before party.”
Having gone through that experience, I can tell you—without any doubt
whatsoever—that if the Justices who formed the majority in Bush v. Gore
had not only all been nominated to the Court by a Republican president,
but had also been confirmed by only Republican Senators in party-line
votes, America would not have accepted that court’s decision.
Moreover, if the confirmation of those Justices in the majority had been
forced through by running roughshod over 200 years of Senate precedents
in a party line vote to break the Senate’s rules—then no speech imaginable
could have calmed the passions aroused in our country.
Over the long term, making our federal judiciary vulnerable to the perception
that it is merely an instrument for politics by other means would threaten
the very foundation of our democracy. The integrity – even the survival – of
American democracy depends upon the rule of law.
Respect for the rule of law rests, in turn, upon the integrity with which our
laws are written, interpreted and enforced—and upon our having, as
James Madison envisioned, a “deliberative democracy.” Madison knew
that the essential alchemy of democracy – whereby just power is derived
from the consent of the governed – can only occur in a process that is
genuinely deliberative.
So it is no accident that our founders gave judges appointments for life—to
ensure an independent judiciary, or that they empowered the Senate to
pass judgment on their fitness. For the Senate, unlike the House, was
structured to encourage a reflective frame of mind, a distance from the
passions of the voters and a capacity for deliberation.
I am deeply concerned by Republican efforts to undermine the rule of law
by stripping the Senate of its right to extended debate over judicial
nominations and by engaging in outright threats and intimidation against
federal judges with whose decisions they disagree.
Even after a judge was murdered in his Atlanta courtroom and the
husband and mother of a federal judge were murdered in Chicago, the
Republican leader of the House of Representatives responded to rulings in
the Terri Schiavo case, by saying ominously: “The time will come for the
men responsible for this to pay for their behavior.”
Representative DeLay claimed his words had been chosen badly but, in the
next breath, issued new threats against the same courts: “We set up the
courts. We can unset the courts. We have the power of the purse.”
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The Chief of Staff for a Republican senator called for “mass impeachment”
under the bizarre theory that the President can declare that any judge is
no longer exhibiting “good behavior.”
The elected and appointed Republican officials who made these dangerous
statements are reflecting the views of some extremist organizations that
make up a growing part of their passionate base of support.
The leader of one such group, the Family Research Council, recently said,
“There’s more than one way to skin a cat, and there’s more than one way
to take a black robe off the bench.”
Another influential leader, James Dobson added, “The Congress can simply
disenfranchise a court. They don’t have to fire anybody or impeach them
or go through that battle. All they have to do is say the 9th Circuit doesn’t
exist anymore, and it’s gone.”
This new assault on the integrity of our constitutional design is fueled by
a small group claiming special knowledge of God’s will in American
politics and charging those of us who disagree with their point of view
with waging war against “people of faith.”
Yet, long before our founders met in Philadelphia, their forbears came to
these shores to escape oppression at the hands of despots who mixed
religion with politics and claimed dominion over both their pocketbooks
and their souls.
This aggressive new strain of right-wing religious zealotry is actually a “Their goal: an all-powerful
throw-back to the intolerance that led to the creation of America in the
first place. executive using a weakened
Unfortunately these extremists, who are committed to changing the basic
nature of our democracy, appear to wield enough political power within
legislature to fashion a
the Republican party today to force the destructive constitutional
confrontation now pending in the Senate. compliant judiciary...”
The arguments they are pressing are no less than an American heresy—a
highly developed political philosophy fundamentally at odds with the
This agenda is supported by an unholy alliance of religious
founding principles of the United States of America.
extremists and greedy special interests. Should they win,
Americans will face the elimination of basic safeguards and
We began as a nation with a clear formulation of the basic relationship protections established for middle class families throughout the
between God, our rights as individuals, and the government we created to
20th century and a complete revision of the historic insulation
secure those rights. of the rule of law from sectarian dogma.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident,” our founders declared. “That all
Our founders understood that there is in all human beings a natural
men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with instinct for power. That is why they established a system of checks and
certain inalienable rights…” balances; to prevent the accretion of too much power in any one set
of hands.
But while our rights come from God, as our founders added, “governments
are instituted among Men, deriving their just power from the consent of The rules and traditions of the Senate derive from a desire to protect the
the governed.” interests of the minority. The filibuster has been at the heart of this
tradition for almost all of our 230 years. Never before has anyone felt
So, unlike our inalienable rights, our laws are human creations that derive compelled to try to eliminate it by breaking the rules.
their moral authority from our consent to their enactment.
So it is not as a Democrat but as an American, that I appeal to the
In pursuing the elimination of the filibuster, these extremists are seeking leadership of the majority in the Senate to halt the effort to break the
to undermine the deliberative character of our democracy because it Senate’s rules and instead to protect a meaningful role in the confirmation
stands in the way of their quest for absolute power. Their goal: an of judges and Justices for Senators of both parties. Remember that you will
all-powerful executive using a weakened legislature to fashion a compliant not always be in the majority—but much more importantly, remember what
judiciary in its own image. is best for our country regardless of which party is temporarily in power.
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