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Thursday, February 26, 2004
Oregon Daily Emerald
COMMENTARY
Editor in Chief:
Brad Schmidt
Managing Editor:
Ian Tobias Montry
Editorial Editor:
Travis Willse
EDITORIAL.
& smacks
Quacks to Oregon University System officials for sug
gesting cuts to the Chancellor's Office. If the proposal
is accepted, the fiduciary blow that Measure 30's failure
dealt to the University would be softened to less than
$1 million.
Smacks to the Eugene Police Department (and the
Oregon Liquor Control Commission) for using under
cover officers to break up weekend parties and hand out
minor in possession citations. While their tactics may be
legal and their actions well-intentioned, their actions are
more complicated (and thus probably more expensive)
than necessary.
Quacks to ASUO President Maddy Melton for comply
ing with the ASUO Constitution Court's demand to ap
point students to the previously empty seats on the court
by the Feb. 24 deadline. Filling the vacancies may have
been long overdue, but a full court can only mean more
efficient justice for the student body.
Smacks to President Bush for backing a constitutional
amendment that would prevent homosexual marriage. Re
gardless of how you feel about the contentious issue, the
Constitution isn't the place for social policy. Fortunately,
the founding document is especially difficult to amend for
a reason.
Quacks to the University for halting plans to build a re
placement basketball arena. While this change of plan
means the school will probably end up spending more
money on the project years down the road, the cessation
is the fiscally prudent thing to do.
Smacks to Green-turned-independent candidate Ralph
Nader. While more choices aren't usually bad for democ
racy, they can present an unfortunate dilemma for voters.
Nader voters looking to get a realistic candidate into office,
in swing states at least, showed in 2000 that it's easy to
make a poor choice — from a strategic standpoint, anyway.
Quacks to students who use the valuable option of on
line classes. If students can relieve classroom resources
while studying in their own space, all the better.
Smacks to the caller who phoned in a bomb threat to
the Knight Library. Irresponsible pranks of this sort
waste taxpayer dollars, precious police resources and
countless man-hours of much-needed student studying.
Enough said.
Quacks to the City's Neighborwoods program for mak
ing the University a greener and more pleasant area, one
sapling at a time.
Smacks to officials at Belpre, Ohio's, Belpre Middle
School for suspending sixth-grader Justin Reyes. Justin was
punished by school officials for bringing a copy of the
Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue to school. Among the
rules he violated: "nonverbal harassment." Certainly peo
ple who run a junior high populated by hundreds of hor
monal teens have more important things to worry about
than sixth-grade males bringing already widely available
pictures of scantily clad women to a school.
Quacks to the six recently arrived Iraqi Fulbright Schol
ars. Exchange students from the embattled nation will help
further open dialogues about American-Iraqi relations and
cultural relations in general.
EDITORIAL POLICY
This editorial represents the opinion of the Emerald
editorial board. Responses can be sent to letters
@dailyemerald.com. Letters to the editor and guest
commentaries are encouraged. Letters are limited
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Authors are limited to one submission per calendar
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to edit for space, grammar and style.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Brad Schmidt Jennifer Sudick
Editor in Chief Freelance Editor
Jan Tobias Montry Ayisha Yahya
Managing Editor News Editor
Travis Willse
Editorial Editor
Trouble during recess
President Bush once said in jest, "If this
were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot
easier ... just so long as I'm the dictator."
And that is almost funny. Almost. It
would be funny if Bush weren't acting
like he believes what he said.
In that vein, the administration an
nounced Friday that it would make a sec
ond recess appointment to the U.S. Cir
cuit Court of Appeals: Judge William
Pryor, whose nomination was facing
strong opposition in the Senate.
Bush's use of recess appointments
demonstrates his enmity for our system
of checks and balances and his willing
ness to cynically use our courts to further
his political objectives.
According to The Hill, when Clinton
issued a recess appointment to James
Hormel, who was being railroaded by
Republicans for being openly gay, Sen.
James Inhofe, R-Okla., said, "I am put
ting holds on every single presidential
nomination." Inhofe added that that
Clinton viewed the process "as little
more than a nuisance which he can cir
cumvent whenever he wants to impose
his will on the country."
I agree with Inhofe. Clinton was wrong.
The authority of the Senate in these mat
ters should be respected. Unfortunately,
now that the Republicans are in power
they are singing a very different tune.
The reasonable use of the filibuster by
some senators is now being spun by the
administration in an obscenely offensive
way, using language like "political lynch
ing" and "political hate crime." This
shows the dark side of the Republican
Party, where dying breeds of bigots are
making their final stand.
The fact is Senate Democrats have been
generous by any calculation. They have
helped confirm 169 out of 175 nominees
who reached the Senate floor. This crowd
included a host of extreme conservatives
that I believe should have been filibus
tered, such as Jeffrey Sutton, Jay Bybee,
Michael McConnell and John Roberts, all
members of the Federalist Society, a
group that advocates judicial activism,
and all uncompromisingly anti-abortion,
anti-affirmative action ideologues.
The Democrats have saved their ob
structionism for the worst of the worst,
David Jagernauth
Critical mass
those nominees who have proved them
selves unworthy of a lifetime appoint
ment to any court.
This includes judges such as Miguel
Estrada. Bush likes his nominees the way
he likes his electronic voting machines:
without a paper trail, and that was Estra
da. He was unqualified, radical and secre
tive. Democrats also filibustered Priscilla
Owens, known as "Judge Enron." One of
her many right-wing dissents was called
an "unconscionable act of judicial ac
tivism" from Bush's own chief White
House Counsel.
Pryor is of this ilk. He has a record of
judicial activism that includes attacks on
the separation of church and state, the
right to choose, homosexual equality
and Congress's ability to combat racial
discrimination.
Judicial activism should be opposed
whether it is liberal or conservative in fla
vor. 1 would oppose the nomination of a
far-left ideologue if his or her record
showed an inability to put politics aside
when considering the rule of law. The
Senate has an obligation to hold Bush's
far right ideologues to the same standard.
This is exactly what they did for Charles
Pickering, a judge from Mississippi and a
protege of Trent Lott. He was rejected in
2002 when his record of hostility to civil
rights and voting rights came to light. De
spite this, Bush decided to ignore the will
of the Senate and appointed him to the ap
pellate court in recess.
Pickering is by far the most objection
able of all the Bush judges. According to
People for the American Way, his opin
ions have been reversed 15 times by the
5th Circuit for ignoring "well-settled prin
ciples of law."
Some of those include the principle of
"one person, one vote," a section of the
Voting Rights Art designed to protect mi
norities in states with a history of racial
discrimination, and interracial marriage.
As a law student he wrote an article sug
gesting ways to change the law banning
miscegenation so that it would be en
forceable again.
His efforts to rework redistricting laws
and voting rights measures in Mississippi
helped keep the state Senate all-white
well into the late 1970s.
Claims of racial discrimination that
came before his court were consistently
met with hostility and skepticism regard
less of the merits of the case.
And he engaged in ethically question
able behavior when he tried to reduce a
mandatory jail sentence for a defendant
convicted of burning a cross on the lawn
of an interracial family.
It is hard to believe that a man like this
still exists in America, let alone that he
will now be responsible for interpreting
the law in one of the second highest
courts in the land.
Fortunately, none of Bush's recess ap
pointments will be on the bench for life,
not yet anyway, but they will still be able
to do enormous damage in the mean
time. The American people need to send
a message to Bush: There is a political
price to pay for presidents that dream of
dictatorships.
Contact the columnist
atdavidjagemauth@dailyemerald.com.
His opinions do not necessarily
represent those of the Emerald.