RALEIGH—Former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese, speaking at a John Locke Foundation luncheon Tuesday, said Democrats in the U.S. Senate are hijacking the nation’s courts.

Meese criticized techniques used by Democrats to prevent a Senate vote on the Bush administration’s judicial appointments. “The Democratic leadership in the Senate is unwilling to carry out its constitutional responsibility,” he said.

Democrats are using filibuster to ensure that judicial nominations will never be brought to a vote, Meese said. A modern-day change in filibuster procedure enables lawmakers to do that, he said, because they don’t have to be physically present to carry out the filibuster. As long as 40 senators agree to it and threaten its use, the filibuster continues until those involved vote to end it.

A minority of senators exercising virtual veto power has derailed America’s court system, Meese said. “In some cases one-third of appellate court seats are vacant,” he said

The problem, he said, is that liberals look for nominees who will push a left-wing legislative agenda rather than for judges who would uphold the Constitution. “The Senate is going beyond its advise and consent power,” he said.

The crossing of constitutional boundaries is evident in the questions that senators asked during the Judicial Committee’s interviews of nominees, Meese said. The senators apply a “litmus test” by asking judges how they would rule on certain matters without having heard a case or possessing any background in the matter. For example, certain Democratic senators are likely to ask potential judges how they would rule on controversial issues such as abortion.

Too often judges push public policies in their decisions, Meese said. “There’s been an increasing tendency for the courts to, on certain occasions, abandon their constitutionally limited role as judges and leap over that wall that separates the judicial branch and the legislative branch,” he said.

Meese cited the recent Supreme Court decision on affirmative action as one example of judges behaving like legislators. “Indeed to some the majority in the Michigan Case has the tone of a legislative enactment,” he said. Sandra Day O’Connor, in her decision, added a sunset provision to the policy when she pronounced that while necessary now, affirmative action wouldn’t be needed in 25 years, Meese said.

Expressing concern that judges have strayed too far from the Constitution, Meese said, “We’ve made some real departures from what the Founders had in mind.”
To solve the problem, Meese said, the Senate must focus its review process on judges’ past work, honesty, and commitment to upholding the Constitution. Also, the Senate must re-instate the traditional filibuster. If Democrats want to use filibuster as a policy tool, they should have to stand on the Senate floor as they did in the past and show the American electorate how silly a filibuster really is, he said.