Wonder why Americans are losing confidence in Congress? Well, yesterday’s hearing of Supreme Court nominee Judge Neal Gorsuch was a prime example, writes John Daniel Davidson in The Federalist.
Senator Diane Feinstein (D., Cal.) started off, “Our job is to determine whether Judge Gorsuch is a reasonable mainstream conservative or is he not.”
And lo, Feinstein decided, he is not. For one thing, Feinstein worried that Gorsuch doesn’t accept Roe v. Wade as a “super precedent,” whatever that is. She submitted into the record 14 Supreme Court cases and 39 other court decisions upholding Roe, then declared: “If these judgments, when combined, do not constitute super precedent, I don’t know what does.”
“Neither do we, senator, because nothing constitutes a super precedent, because there’s no such thing,” notes Mr. Davidson.
Whether she knew it or not, Feinstein was channeling what legal scholar Randy Barnett recently called “oblivious” and “ignorant” critiques of originalism. That is to say, she hasn’t the foggiest idea what originalism is.
For his part, Gorsuch graciously sat through this buffoonery with a puzzled look on his face, channeling the American people.
Read more from Mr. Davidson here.
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