Bush Pushes to Keep Citizens Away from Supreme Court

If you still need another reason to vote progressive in 2008, consider what our current non-progressive administration is trying to do to the Supreme Court. No, I’m not talking about the way George W. Bush has packed the court with authoritarians. I’m talking about the arguments his people are making before the Supreme Court. The Bush administration has directly told the Supreme Court that it doesn’t believe citizens have standing to bring constitutional challenges to it, not even regarding the most basic violations of the Bill of Rights. That’s right: George W. Bush wants to put a sign on the doors of the Supreme Court: No Citizens Allowed.

The New York Times reports on arguments made by the Bush Administration before the Supreme Court in the case of Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation Inc.:

First, Mr. Clement said, taxpayers should be limited to challenging Congressional statutes, not executive branch programs like that in this suit. Second, the solicitor general argued, taxpayers should be able to challenge only spending outside the government, not internal spending like that cited by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Did that mean, Justice Antonin Scalia asked Mr. Clement, taxpayers could challenge a statute that gave money to outside groups to build churches, but not one that directed the government to build its own church?

It was a “horrible hypothetical,” Mr. Clement replied, but Justice Scalia had understood him correctly: taxpayers should not have standing to challenge “an internal government church.”…

Mr. Clement was unruffled as the justices tossed various hypothetical questions his way. Could a taxpayer challenge a law that commemorated the Pilgrims “by building a government church at Plymouth Rock where we will have the regular worship in the Puritan religion?” Justice Stephen G. Breyer asked.

“I would say no,” Mr. Clement said.

Justice Breyer persisted, asking about a law requiring the government to build churches “all over America” dedicated to one particular sect. “Nobody could challenge it?” he asked.

“There would not be taxpayer standing,” Mr. Clement replied.

What the hell were we citizens and taxpayers thinking? That it was a government of the people or something?

Option 1: Let’s just all butt out and let the professionals do their job. That’s always worked so well.
Option 2: Let’s elect a president who doesn’t consider the constitutional considerations of citizens to be an impairment.

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