Convictions: Slate's blog on legal issues

John McCain and Partisan Entrenchment

In contrast to Andy Koppelman, Steve Griffin, and Doug Kmiec, I'm not all that upset at John McCain's speech on the judiciary. McCain is signaling to Republicans that he will take pretty much the same line on judicial nominations that the party has taken since 1980, when it began an increasingly self-conscious strategy of stocking the courts with movement conservatives. McCain doesn't like some things the courts have been doing, says that judges who decide cases this way are arrogating power to themselves improperly, and then states that if he is elected, he will appoint judges who interpret the Constitution the way he thinks it should be interpreted:

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