Monday, February 4, 2008

It's about the Judiciary, Stupid!

Tomorrow, we go to the polls to select the candidate that will be our standard bearer in the general election in November.

The Republican nomination, based as it is on their oh-so-Republican "winner take all" delegate allocations might be sewn up tomorrow. But the Democrats, being, well, Democratic and awarding delegates proportionally, will probably have to battle on for another month or so.

For me, this election distills to one solitary issue...judicial appointments.

Appointments to the Federal bench are for a lifetime. And those lifetime-tenured appointments are the real source of power over the lives of ordinary Americans. They can make decisions that affect your ability to seek recompense in the face of negligence. They can interpret laws in such a manner that your fundamental rights and the relationship between citizens and their government are fundamentally altered.

Who sits on the Federal bench is the ongoing legacy of every president, Democrat or Republican.
With Judicial appointments in the forefront, the Alliance for Justice Action Campaign has assembled a voter handbook, and spells out five questions informed voters should not merely ask, but demand cogent answers to.
  1. What criteria would you use to select a Supreme Court Justice?
  2. What is the best Supreme Court decision in recent history? The worst?
  3. Who do you have in mind as a potential Supreme Court nominee?
  4. Which Supreme Court Justice would be your role model when you are appointing a nominee? Why?
  5. How can Americans make their voices heard in the White House and in the Senate to influence the judicial nomination process.
Keep that in mind when you go to the polls tomorrow, and in November.

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