Makes You Want to Have Even More Conservative Justices, Doesn't it?

[tengers]

The Supreme Court overturned a West Virginia Supreme Court ruling that overturned a ruling against an energy company. The deciding vote in that case was a judge who won his position on the bench via a $3 million contribution to his campaign. This sum was more than contributed by any other person to the campaign and was more than all of the other contributors to the election. The contribution was made by the Energy Company who wanted the ruling overturned by the West Virginia Court.

As if it wasn't bad enough that the guy took $3 million from an energy company, and then sat on the case and didn't recuse himself, our Conservative members of our own Supreme Court didn't see anything wrong with this. These are the folks that brought us Bush and Cheney in 2000. Justices Roberts, Scalia, Alito and Thomas all voted against the ruling. Makes you proud to have conservatives on the bench. It must be their objectivity.

High court: Judge should have dropped case involving donor - USATODAY.com

[Dan_77]

The problem with the dissents is that they seem to be concerned about the possible future implications of their decision.

That is judicial activism. Judicial conservatism means making the right choice in a case, regardless of the future potential consequences (meaning, decide the case on the facts and law as they exist at that time).

Not surprised Scalia becomes a judicial activist when it suits him.

[RickSp]

I would have been shocked if Scalia had not dissented. Remember "Duckgate"?

The trouble began last month when reports surfaced that, while a case in which Vice President Dick Cheney is the named party was pending in the Supreme Court, Cheney went duck hunting in Louisiana with Justice Antonin Scalia. It's bad enough that the several-day trip was sponsored by an energy company and that the case questions whether energy companies played too significant a role in developing Bush's energy policy. Matters worsened significantly with Scalia's flip statement to the Los Angeles Times that, "I do not think my impartiality could reasonably be questioned" and that the only thing really wrong with the trip was that the hunting was "lousy."

There was a lot more wrong with the trip than that. But whether Congress has the right to set definitive conflict-of-interest rules for Supreme Court justices is another matter entirely.

To be fair, going on an energy company sponsored duck hunt with Cheney pales in comparison to the $3 the West Virginia judge received in campaign donations from the energy company. Nevertheless the players all look familiar.