Overruling Democracy

March 15, 2003
Constitutional scholar Raskin uses the Bush versus Gore decision declaring Bush president as a reflection of both the continuing momentum of a rightward swing and the antidemocratic thrust of the U.S. Supreme Court. The use of the equal protection clause of the Constitution, designed to protect the newly freed slaves, as a basis for protecting Bush is symbolic of the inverse practices of the Supreme Court. States' rights, strict constructionism, original intent--these theories associated with the rightist ideologies fell under the political need to ensure that the "right" president was elected. This rightward shift is the consequence of a successful strategy to appoint conservative judges to the federal bench and has resulted in the denial of constitutional rights to an education and to public debate and a narrowing of privacy rights. Raskin argues that conservative jurists have taken an activist posture against popular democracy. In addition to challenging the propriety of this conservative judicial activism, Raskin articulates a plan for counterbalancing that activism. A worthy read.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)