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Mark Pazniokas of CTMirror tells us “Sandra Slack Glover withdrew Friday as Gov. Ned Lamont’s nominee for the state Supreme Court, unable to overcome legislative questions about her commitment to upholding Connecticut’s strong reproductive rights laws.
“Glover, 52, the appellate chief for the U.S. Attorney of
Connecticut, was wounded by a letter she signed in 2017 on behalf of Amy Coney
Barrett, the conservative destined to play a pivotal role in ending a woman’s
federal right to an abortion.”
Political obituaries are now rolling in.
Courant columnist Kevin Rennie reminds us following Glover’s withdrawal that both
Governor Ned Lamont and Glover are new to the serpentine ways of Connecticut politics.
If either had been more experienced politically, the nomination might have been
saved. During her confirmation testimony before the state Judiciary Committee, Glover
had set off too many political tripwires.
Glover had signed the usual letter of recommendation for Amy
Coney Barrett when Barrett had applied for a position as a Superior Court
Judge. Years later, Barrett had been successfully installed on the U.S. Supreme
Court as an Associated Justice, and still later the Court had reversed its
decision in Roe v. Wade.
Therefore… therefore what?
Glover’s much anticipated withdrawal as a nominee for the
Superior Court position has therefore saved members of the State Judiciary
Committee from publically answering the above knotty question.
Is it possible that the political tripwires, rather than the
independent judgment of nominees to various court positions, are the problems?
On the one hand, we expect judges to render their best, disinterested
judgment on cases before them – not their latent political prejudices. The
separation of powers doctrine has taught us over the years that the
legislative, executive and judicial branches are engaged in different pursuits
and political missions. Over the past few decades, political mines and
tripwires have been randomly strewn in the path of judicial nominees installed
by politicians wise in the serpentine ways of politics.
Perhaps the best political mine-planter in recent memory was
former U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy, the “liberal lion of the
Senate.” His political objection to the Supreme Court nomination of Judge
Robert Bork still rumbles through the years: “Robert Bork's America is a land
in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at
segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in
midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and
artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the
Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens.”
The highly hyperbolic concerns mentioned by Kennedy need not
trouble legislators who have not committed themselves to using the judicial
system to accomplish their own political ends. But the more often cowardly
legislators rent out to courts their own legislative responsibilities, the more
frequently and deeply are the courts politicized.
It was to prevent the political pollution of courts that the
Supreme Court found in Dobbs
v. Jackson that decisions on abortion should be made by state
legislatures rather than judges because, the court said, such decisions are, by
their very nature, political. Dobbs answers the question – who
should decide abortion issues? – and leaves to legitimate legislative deciders what
should be decided. Naturally, the court reserves to itself the right to declare
certain legislative measures unconstitutional – when rare and exceptional cases
are, in fact, unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court – and perhaps appellate courts – are less
likely after Dobbs to declare
unconstitutional state legislative decisions rendered on the matter of
abortion. It is no hyperbole to say that Connecticut is perhaps the most
pro-abortion state in the nation. The solution to that problem, should voters
decide it is a problem, is to vote out of office, pro-abortion extremist
politicians –essentially a political not a judicial remedy.
Everyone will agree that it is not possible to extend
infinitely a right in one direction that will not, sooner or later, collide
with a competing right, and the courts must adjudicate those rights. But Dobbs
stands a caution that jurists should not be legislating from the bench. To do
so is to invite disdain from a general population and violate both the
separation of powers doctrine and a constitutional arrangement that is the best
defense against a corrupt autocracy.
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