Tim Rutten

Regarding Politics & Media

Sorry Ted Cruz, it is Obama’s Duty as President to Name a New Supreme Court Justice

By Tim Rutten

Tuesday, February 16, 2016 0 Government, Politics Antonin Scalia, Obama, Ted Cruz, US Supreme Court Permalink

In the great debate over civil rights and an independent judiciary that consumed the German Reichstag in October of 1877, the Catholic parliamentarian Ludwig Windthorst decisively broke with the Prussian Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, and his brand of conservatism: “‘Conservative' means to conserve the given, legitimate institutions in State and Church,” Windthorst said. “It does not mean to arm a government with omnipotence, with which it can modify those institutions at will. So long as you confuse conservatism with Polizeiwirtschaft (a police state) an alliance with you is certainly unthinkable." Nor does a genuine conservatism empower one party to remake all ...

Antonin Scalia’s Death: Obama Must Nominate a Replacement Despite GOP Rancor

By Tim Rutten

Sunday, February 14, 2016 0 Government, Politics Antonin Scalia, Obama, US Supreme Court Permalink

The unexpected death of Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has brought into sharp focus the fact this election cycle will decide not only control of the White House, but also the high court and the U.S. Senate—in other words, all three of the coequal branches of government. Scalia was a giant of the conservative jurisprudence that has come to play such a decisive role in our national life. His opinions on free speech and due process may have as many admirers on the left as they do on the right. Even so, his particular theory of constitutional interpretation—textualism, in which ...