Thursday, March 04, 2004
Power trip
Today U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun's papers were released (it's the five-year anniversary of his death). Among the most interesting tidbits that his papers revealed was confirmation of just how close the Supreme Court came to overruling Roe v. Wade in 1992 in the case Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The court had already voted 5-4 to overrule, when Justice Anthony Kennedy changed his mind. Blackmun doesn't tell us exactly why. The vote came out 5-4 the other way, and Roe is still with us.
But I wonder what it would be like to be Kennedy. The resolution of one of the nation's most controversial political issues rests on you and you alone. And you know it. How much guts would it take to change your mind? That, to me, is an awful lot of power vesting in one person. I guess that's what you get when you have the doctrine of judicial review.
But I wonder what it would be like to be Kennedy. The resolution of one of the nation's most controversial political issues rests on you and you alone. And you know it. How much guts would it take to change your mind? That, to me, is an awful lot of power vesting in one person. I guess that's what you get when you have the doctrine of judicial review.
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