In the movie “National Treasure,” Nicolas Cage plays a thrill-seeking treasure hunter who steals the Declaration of Independence. He succeeds in his quest, walking right past armed security guards and out the front door, with the Declaration rolled up under his arm like a poster – because nobody is paying attention.
That’s fiction, of course. But a similar real-life scenario has been occurring for several decades that’s just as disturbing. The rights guaranteed by another of our founding documents, the Constitution, are being stolen away little by little by a few black-robed vigilantes: liberal justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.
The most recent example of this occurred this June, when five of the nine justices decreed that a city could take someone’s home and give it to a private developer so that higher taxes can be levied on the same land. With just the flick of a pen, they destroyed property rights that have been constitutionally protected for more than 200 years. And that’s just the latest incident in a long pattern of justices rewriting the very Constitution they’re entrusted to protect.
But the good news is that President Bush has taken an important step toward reversing that trend. He has nominated federal Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court, to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
Not only is Judge Roberts unquestionably qualified for the position, but his record also indicates he will respect the Constitution rather than reinvent it according to his whims. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in only three years, and magna cum laude from Harvard Law. As a solicitor for the Justice Department, he argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court. Only a handful of attorneys in this nation even come close to that record.
In fact, those who want to play party politics and oppose this nominee simply because he was nominated by a conservative president will have an extremely hard case to make because legal experts on both sides of the political aisle have acknowledged Roberts’ credentials. After his nomination to the District of Columbia court of appeals, a bipartisan group of more than 150 lawyers sent a letter of support to the Senate Judiciary Committee: “Although as individuals, we reflect a wide spectrum of political party affiliation and ideology, we are united in our belief that John Roberts will be an outstanding federal court of appeals judge.” In 2003, he was confirmed by unanimous vote of the Senate to that court, where he’s currently serving.
Still, we’ll likely see some nasty attacks from the left wing. That’s because they’re threatened by Roberts’ record, which indicates he will follow the Constitution over and above the political agenda of any activist group. President Bush made this clear when he told the nation that his nominee has “profound respect for the rule of law” and would not “legislate from the bench.”
It’s also encouraging that Roberts served as associate counsel for President Reagan and clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist, one of the justices on the court who has not given in to judicial activism.
Here’s the real bottom line: Liberal justices have moved the country’s laws away from the literal content of the Constitution for far too long. We have the chance to reverse that trend. This is the first Supreme Court vacancy in more than a decade, and Roberts is only 50 years old. If he gets a seat on the court, he will likely impact American legal tradition for generations to come.
This was what the 2004 election was all about. The president promised to nominate men and women who will strictly interpret the Constitution and who will not lead our country down the wrong path through personal preference.
Now it’s time for U.S. senators to do the work “values voters” sent them to Washington to carry out, by ensuring Roberts gets a fair hearing and an up-or-down vote before the Supreme Court begins its new term this October.
We can no longer afford to turn our heads while robbers in robes scribble in the Constitution’s margins, creating nonexistent rights. After all, this isn’t a movie; it’s our nation’s present and future at stake.
Carrie Gordon Earll is a senior manager in the Government and Public Policy Division of Focus on the Family.
