Ann Althouse
Althouse.blogspot.com
January 23, 2010
I answer that question I asked back here.
…ADDED: A day has passed, and you’ve chewed over the question. Now, I’ll give my answer. It is exactly what I, a law professor, would expect to hear from another law professor! The odd thing is that Obama, a politician, didn’t stop himself from saying the kind of thing lawprofs say to each other.
Non-lawprof Americans tend to think that the Constitution really means something and that that the Supreme Court has a special role and expertise in saying what it means, that a 5-4 decision is something more than just a vote on what 9 power-wielders would like the law to be.
I would expect a politician to tend to the voters’ feelings. Obama should have said that he would like to explore ways to write a new statute that will respect the rights the Court has articulated and still serve the good and proper goals that the defective statute was meant to serve. With some sugar about how rights are important.
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Althouse’s readers’ comments are generally as good a read as the professor’s blog. The comments by storkdoc and The Ghost are worth reading if you’re not a law professor, but just citizens like the rest of us:
storkdoc: What I, a nonlawyer fails to understand, is why law professors are unable to under the simple phrase “Congress shall make no law…” Seems to be no wiggle room there. Are there additional definitions of these words that I’m not aware of?
1/22/10 8:51 AM
The Ghost: so he wants Congress to pass a law that would reinstate the restrictions on free speech just struck down by the Supremes ?
What is this, wack a mole ?
In what alternate universe does he think the appropriate response to the Supreme court saying, “you can’t do x”, is to propose a law that does x ?
Does he really want to Amend the Constitution ? Because that is the only way to overturn this decision.
Wow, just wow … and he was “the smart one” in the last election ?
1/22/10 8:53 AM
