Tony Lee
Breitbart.com
Big Government
2 Nov 2012
Whoever wins next week’s presidential election may shape the Supreme Court for the next generation of Americans, highlighting how important Tuesday’s election is to the high court’s future constitutional integrity.
Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy — both of whom were appointed by President Ronald Reagan — and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — a Clinton appointee — will all turn 80 before 2016. Ginsberg is 79 while Scalia and Kennedy are 76…
…Many of the most important cases brought before the Court have been decided by a 5-4 majority; future justices’ proclivity towards judicial activism or restraint will likely determine the outcome of cases dealing with national security, racial preferences, same-sex marriage, abortion, and privacy laws…
…In 2005, in Kelo v. City of New London, Kennedy and Ginsburg voted with the majority in a 5-4 decision that upheld that the government, by using the powers of “eminent domain,” could confiscate private property from one of its citizens. The Court found that the city could give the land to a private company to use in a manner that would increase the city’s tax revenue as defined by the concept of “public use” in the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Many conservatives believe this decision was unconscionable and one of the worst in the history of the Court…
The entire article is at Big Government.
