Ed Meese (ex-Attorney General) wrote today an opinion piece in The Washington Post entitled “Did it succeed?” It all hinges on whether or not the Supreme Court rules in favor of Roe. Wade.”
Meese has many notes that I have written about.
First, Roe This is the main precedent which inspired the conservative legal movement.
Roe It has been the most prominent example of disrespect for our Constitution’s power allocation and proper judicial function over the years. Judges and scholars, including Antonin Scalia, Alexander Bickel and William H. Rehnquist, have criticized it. It is a good thing. They and the legal movement that they created are greatly appreciated. RoeSupreme Court misunderstood the Constitution and ignored lessons from history, encouraging unaccountable government.
The final word Roe would be the crowning achievement of that movement.
Meese also laments the Reagan Administration’s greatest legal failure, failing to enforce overrule Roe:
Our failure to convince the Supreme Court not to rule against Reagan’s law was perhaps the most regrettable legal mistake of Reagan’s administration. Roe. Unlike then, six Supreme Court justices have expressed some support for the Founders’ interpretation principles. They have also been influenced by scholarship, institutions and renewed dialog brought to law profession by Federalist Society, textualism, originalism, and textualism.
This failure went beyond Reagan’s presidency. Justices O’Connor, Kennedy and Justice Souter voted to confirm Reagan’s election. Roe In Casey. Meese reaffirms that the Reagan Revolution would support overruling Roe. Donald Ayer is extremely, very wrong.
Meese thirdly writes that failure to rule is a failing RoeIt would mean a rejection of conservative legal movements.
It is difficult to turn the tide. Roe and Casey in a case squarely presenting the question would suggest that the Founders’ views cannot compete with the preferred positions of some special interests. For the sake of a republic of laws not of men, I hope the court will ratify the promise of the Founders’ Constitution.
What are the consequences? DobbsThese efforts extend beyond the midterm election.
Meese also points out the Court’s abortion jurisprudence This has caused distortions to many areas of the law. Roe.
This judicial willfulness has been further exacerbated by subsequent abortion case law. A separate law of abortion exists. RoeJustice Harry A. Blackmun was the author of this statement. He said that it is a violation or distortion of ordinary legal rules to keep constitutionalized abortion alive. With that, many other areas of law — from free speech, religious liberty, voting laws, to mundane matters of civil procedure — have been turned into proxy wars over abortion, because Roe and Casey prevent the court from honestly confronting their lacking basis in the Constitution. In short, constitutionalized abortion epitomizes judicial supremacy because it rests on nothing else.
End the epicycles.
Finally, Meese recognizes that the Court’s failure to overrule Roe would have ripple effects on law students, future lawyers:
If voters trusted judges’ public interpretations of the law, they would doubt their faith. When the stakes get too high, it would be fair for law students to question whether it was worth standing for neutral principles. They will feel compelled to give up this approach in favor of an overwhelmingly results-oriented way to judge.
Meese channeled the message I received as a 3L.
Meese has been the face of the movement for four decades. His leadership and direction are a credit to all of us. I wish other older statesmen or stateswomen of the movement would speak up soon.