chrisbannon's blog

Jon Henke made a post a few days ago, that was maybe a bit short on substance, but nevertheless made his point. Republicans have not done very well in the world of public opinion concerning their criticisms of Judge Sotomayor. While I agree that Judge Sotomayor has said some unfortunate things, the way that some of the comments by Gingrich, Rush, Steele, and others have come across have not helped our case. I made some responses to Henke's post on why I thought that these individuals were being given a microphone. However, what was even worse than the failure of those perceived to be leaders on our side to effectively criticize Judge Sotomayor were the comments made in response to Henke's post. Here, I respond to Henke's call for Republicans to "grow up" in a meaningful and constructive way with how I would go about questioning Judge Sotomayor as a Republican Senator on the Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Bannon: Good morning Judge Sotomayor. Allow me to be one of the first to welcome you and you're lovely family here to the Senate. As you know from your distinguished career, but for the folks watching on CSPAN or Youtube or on the nightly news, we are here today because of the Senate's role under Article II of the Federal Constitution to give advise and consent to the President when he should have the opportunity to appoint a nominee to the Supreme Court. It is one of our many functions as a check on the two other branches of government,  the Executive, in the form of the President and the Judiciary, in the form of the Supreme Court.

As is the case with most likely all of the Supreme Court nominees that the Senate gets to question, your credentials are impeccable. So much such that I will only briefly review them to acknowledge to all paying attention that you are most definitely qualified on paper to sit on the Supreme Court. Princeton Undergrad and Harvard law,  ultimately culminating in a Judgeship on the 2nd Federal Circuit Court of Appeals and nominated by the President to sit on the highest court in the land. Your achievements stand as accomplishments to be proud of and let us hope that you are placed as a role model for those outstanding achievements in the lives of all of our young.

Judge, there is a lot going on outside right now. The newspapers and other media are paying attention. Right, left, up down, crisscross are all paying attention and have been screaming ever since you were nominated. In fact the entire world is most likely paying attention, but you know what Judge, I want to bore them to death. I want to sit here, just two people, a United States Senator and a United States Judge, and have a scholarly conversation about that great founding document of ours, the Constitution of the United States, only with the realization that the points that are made in our scholarly conversation can indeed be very exciting and have real world effects despite sounding like we are up in the clouds. Do you think we can do that Judge?

Judge Sotomayor: Of course, Senator Bannon.

Sen. Bannon: Good Judge, then lets get right to it and lets get the main thing that has been causing all of that screaming and manuevering out there, and lets get it out of the way and then lets move on to bore everyone. Judge Sotomayor, Do you believe that the Constitution of the United States is colorblind?

Judge Sotomayor will then answer the question but no matter what she answers we should just let it go. Either she will hang herself and say that the Constitution is not colorblind or else we will look like we are badgering her about a petty issue.  I say we should move on, because there are a number of other Constitutional questions that I will outline below that are much more important than whether a Judge thinks Latina women are better than White men, because Judge Sotomayor will practically speaking never be able to rule that Latina women are better than White men in any form whatsoever.

Other Questions I would ask Judge Sotomayor: (Note: It is her failure to answer these questions that I would press her on. Here we are treating her as any other normal nominee, questioning her judicial philosophy on things likely to come before the court, not getting in a battle about race with the first Latina woman every nominated to the Supreme Court).

1. Does the dormant commerce clause exist? If so, please explain how you would approach a case dealing with the dormant commerce clause.

2. Can you please discuss your take on Youngstown Sheet and Tube v. Sawyer, specifically addressing Justice Jackson's 3 part  concurring opinion?

3. Can you discuss your view of the 10th Amendment's role in the Constitution?

4. Can you please discuss your take on the caselaw leading up the decision in Kelo v. New London? (Notice that I did not ask her view on this case, because she will give the "its an issue likely to come before the court" response. But there would be no reason not to discuss the two important cases that were cited in Kelo).

5. Do you believe that Miranda rights are Constitutional rights?

6. Can you please give us your definition of Pornography? (Tie this into some statement about how more and more children are preyed upon because of online predators, etc.)

7. Could you please give us your opinion of the standards the court must look at in determining whether enough has been met under rule 8(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure?

8. Can you please discuss the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and how you would have applied it if you had been on the bench when Korematsu came to the Court?

9. Ought international law be used in interpreting the Constitution of the United States?

10. Does the Constitution permit the legislature to strip the United States Supreme Court of jurisdiction over an issue?

Note: Most of these questions are not particularly hot buttoned topics and, if they are, they are certainly not framed that way. Secondly, for most of these questions, the standard "non-answer, answer" would not only be unacceptable to the right, but would likely be unacceptable to the left as well. These are the types of questions, for a myriad of reasons, a judicial nominee would have to provide some type of answer to, or else there could be a case made to the majority of the American people that there was a valid reason to vote against her/him. 

Conservatives should stop playing by liberal rules.

I see it all of the time.  Take any issue. Conservatives come up with an idea for how to solve the issue. It sounds new and fresh and bold. Conservative representatives make some, if not many, concessions to more liberal leaning representation and the liberals stand up and take credit for solving the issue. We give them a soapbox and they bring in a microphone and turn off our loudspeakers. It wasn’t always like this. When conservatives were right in the 1980’s about the Communist state of the USSR and the way to defeat it, many, though obviously not all, liberals stood with, even behind Presidents Reagan and Bush. When conservatives pushed for and won welfare reform in the 1990’s, sure we gave President Clinton much of the credit, but there were many Democrats in congress who stood behind the legislation of the Republicans, while the Republicans stood out front. However, it is not like that anymore. Liberals, infected with relativism, don’t need to play by the same rules as conservatives do. We should stop giving them an opportunity to speak and take credit for our ideas. Without our talking points on ideas that we came up with, liberals make less sense when speaking to the American people, and therefore are less likely to be voted into office.

Another example: the Constitution. This is probably the most egregious example of where liberals change the rules in their favor, but I place it second, because I think conservatives need to start thinking more about the third issue. On the Constitution, the difference between conservatives and liberals is obvious. As conservatives, we think in this order: You write down some rules, (we call them laws), and for everyone to participate, we think, everyone must follow the rules. You may not win every time, but when following the rules you at least know how the contest is played and have a pretty good opportunity to win.  In contrast, liberals play like this: I WIN! Yes, like the little child in the movie Big Daddy, liberals simply avoid the rules to reach a winning result. Conservatives end up being the food delivery guy screaming about how messed up that is. Think about how liberals continually run roughshod over the Constitution, or constitutions, in order to achieve maximum results for their ideas while all the while proclaiming tolerance of everyone else’s ideas. This is how we need to explain our differing views, rather than citing the difference between the “living Constitution” and “Originalism.”

Finally, in the realm of life and the way that one lives one’s life, Conservatives have too often lived like liberals. We need to start living less like we are attempting to achieve the maximum amount of individual pleasure and instead focus on our responsibilities and again stand as role models in our communities. In this area, there is a lot of rebuilding to be done, but it is necessary because our ideas are tested by time, and if nothing else good comes from recent experience, our current national situation shows that our principles are right. Simple truisms and directives like: “Don’t spend what you don’t have,” “A child needs a mother and a father,” “Go to church,” “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” “What goes around comes around,” and  “Words have meaning, and Actions have Consequences,” are much more insightful and compelling than any campaign slogan that I can think of. Liberals, as relativists don’t believe in truisms because they don’t believe in truth. The quicker we, as conservatives, realize this, the easier it will be to begin operating in the world in its natural conservative framework once again. As Margaret Thatcher said: “The facts of life are conservative.”

New York State is a Microcrosm of the Republican Party's Problems

I know that this statement seems unfathomable, but its true. New York State has some really good local parties, right now few and far between, but a few. Other than that, New York State's local parties are stuck in the dark, without message, without leadership, without volunteers, without outreach, etc. They have pictures on the walls that depict shadows of their formerly great selves, but the shell is all that remains.  This was the case even before a number of  Republican Congressman retired, lest they get defeated. Despite the party being hollow, the shell still does remain, and this is what Republicans in New York and throughout the country must look to fill.

ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL (As long as you don't play the media game)

If there is anything that we can take from David Plouffe's recent interview in Conde` Nast, it is two things: 1. Don't buy the media's telling of the story as a party or campaign. People don't trust the media. However, make the media buy your story of the party and campaign. There are increasingly less media figures anyway so this might even get easier. 2. Start up campaigns with strong grassroots emphasis from the managers can focus mainly on grassroots and work.

Note here that there need to be managers. This is where we come in. Even the Ron Paul campaign had managers that decided what the logo, etc. was going to look like at first, but after that they enabled the grassroots to do what was necessary to get the ideas out.

We, who read and participate in these blogs, need to be the new managers. Stop worrying about who the next RNC chair is going to be. I hope it matters and it makes a difference, but in all likelihood it won't. We need to be the new chairmen, we need to be the new local party leaders, we need to be the new recruiters to fill the shell of our state parties so that we can have principled individuals rise to the top, drudgingly go to the Federal government to state the Republican Party principle that problems are best solved by those closest to the problem.

I mean of course our Republican Party elected officials in Washington don't listen to the grassroots and vote against bailout after bailout...there is no one of any significance who can hold them accountable back at home. So while King David Patterson's taxes on everything sits as a foreshadow to what will be the media story with the Obama administration (he HAD  to raise taxes, there was no other option), lets start at the local level and state levels and prove that there are other options. Where do you live? Go to your local party, and get involved. If they won't let you, then start running your own candidates. Anyone who is reading TheNextRight.com obviously has a better handle on the ways of the world than does the local party chairman. BEAT THEM at their own game. As for me, this will probably be my last post for a while, because that is exactly what I am going to do.