Political science discussion

The appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court highlights the importance of how the Constitution is read by those on the court. How the Constitution is read effects the outcome of many decisions. In the Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2015, the decision turned on how to read the Act itself, whether by the letter of the law as written, or whether the ‘intent’ of the lawmakers should be considered. Those who read the Act in such a way that only the actual words of the ACA were important voted against the Act, while those who took into consideration the legislative intent of Congress voted in favor of the ACA.

Attached is a file with two brief newspaper articles that concern the interpretation of laws and the Constitution.  They outline differing points of view.  What are they? Do you find one more convincing than the other?  Do you find one more problematic than the other? 

Please state whether you find the arguments and beliefs of one side to be more persuasive than the other, and why.  What might one interpretation mean for reading parts of the Constitution? Please try to elaborate and use examples to make your point clear. The length would be about 350 words.

Los Angeles Times, Part A; Pg. 1, June 17, 2004

Thomas’ Take on the Law Rooted in 18th Century;
The justice’s historical perspective challenges many widely held beliefs about the
Constitution.

David G. Savage, Times Staff Writer

Justice Clarence Thomas may be silent in the Supreme Court during public arguments, but he is not shy about
making bold pronounc ements in written opinions.

His latest challenge to conventional wisdom came this week in the Pledge of Allegiance case, when he opined
that the Constitution protected a state’s right to recognize an official church.

Almost everyone has assumed that the opposite is true.

It is not the first time Thomas has tried to turn the standard thinking on its head when it comes to understanding
key parts of the U.S. Constitution. He has done so by focusing on the words and history of the document as it
was written in 1787.

“He likes to say we should look at this afresh. Our law is muddled, and we should rethink it,” Yale Law School
professor Akhil Amar said admir ingly of Thomas.

But the conseque nces o f his “re thinking” co uld be far-re aching.

For example, Thomas has argued that the word “commerce” in the Constitution should be understood as it was
in the 18th century: the movement of goods across state lines. Under this view, the states could not erect tariffs
or other barriers to the free flow of goods.

In the 20th century, however, the Supreme Court adopted a much broader view of commerce, relying on that
definition to uphold federal laws that set minimum wages, prohibited discrimination in the workplace,
protected the environment or regulat ed the manufac ture of products, in cluding autos and drugs.

In a separate 1995 opinion, Thomas said that this broad view conflicted with the Constitution and should be
reconsidered. If his colleagues ever agree, many of today’s workplace laws would be struck down.

Soon after joining the court in 1991, Thomas wrote that the word “punishment” in the Constitution restricted
only “judges, not jailers.” The high court had adopted a broader view of the ban on “cruel and unusual
punishment” in the 1970s and protected prisoners from being subjected to needlessly cruel treatment.

When Thomas denounced this view as flatly mistaken, Justice Harry A. Blackmun pointed out that his opinion
would permit the t orture of inmate s by prison guards.

Two years ago, Thomas condemned the doctrine supporting the separation of church and state, saying it grew
out of “anti-Catholic bigotry” during the 19th century. Then, Protestants controlled the public schools, and
immigrant Catholics set up their own schools to escape the Protestant influence, he said.

Beginning in the 1940s, a unanimous Supreme Court said that the 1st Amendment erected a “wall of separation
between church and state,” quoting Thomas Jefferson. Relying on that view, the court in the early 1960s struck

down state-sponsored prayers and Bible readings in the public schools. Later, the justices voided state laws that
funneled tax mo ney into religious schools.

Many con servatives, incl uding Ch ief Justic e Willi am H. Rehnquist, say th e co urt has gone to o far. On Monda y,
he said the court should uphold the words “one nation, under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance because its daily
recital in the schools was “a patriotic exercise, not a religious one.”

In his separate opinion, Thomas said he would go much further and sweep aside 60 years of law by ruling that
the 1st Amendment did not limit a state’s power to “establish” an official religion.

“Quite simply, the Establishment Clause … protects state establishments from federal interference. [It] does not
protect an individual right,” he wrote.

He pointed to its words: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Until the Civil
War, the 1st Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights limited only the federal government. After the Civil
War, however, the Constitution was amended and states were barred from infringing on “the privileges and
immunities” of Americans, i ncluding their rights to du e process of law and t he equal prote ction of the law.

By the mid-20th century, the Supreme Court had ruled that the Constitution as a whole prohibited states and
local governments from violating basic rights, such as freedom of speech and religion, by denying fair trials or
by promoting an official religion.

The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, called
Thomas’ view “breathtakingly radical.”

“Mississippi could be officially Baptist, and Utah could be officially Mormon. If his viewpoint ever became the
majority on the high court, it would tear our country apart along religious lines,” he said.

Constitutional scholars in the area of religion credit Thomas with reviving a historical, if now outdated, view of
the 1st Amendment.

“I thought his was the m ost intere sting opinion in the p led ge case. Thoma s is right a s a matt er of history,” says
Richard W. Garnett, an associate professor a t the University of Notre Dame Law School “But I think most
people would see it as water under the bridge.”

Others were less charitable. “This is a pretty astonishing view. No one [among past justices] has gone remotely
this far, and I don’t think he’ll get a second vote for it,” said University of Texas law professor Douglas Laycock.

“He is a hard-nosed o rigina list who loo ks bac k to 17 91,” when the Bill of Rights was r atified, Laycock said. “He
acts as though the Civil War didn’t happen, or it didn’t matter.”

The significance o f the Reconstruct ion-era amendme nts often divides conser vatives and liberals.

While conservatives emphasize that the Constitution of 1787 limited the national government and protected the
rights of the states, liberals counter that the Reconstruction amendments fundamentally widened the scope of
the Constitution b y imposing limits on the states a nd protecting the ri ghts of individual Americans.

Thomas will be 56 next week. Despite his 13 years on the high court, he remains its youngest m ember. He
expects, he has sa id, to serve for several more decades.

It is not clear what impact, if any, will flow from his view of an “establishment of religion.” He noted Monday
that the 1st Amendment also protected the “free exercise of religion,” and this would forbid states from
requiring particip ation in religious servic es.

None of the other justices have adopted Thomas’ 18th century view of “commerce” or “punishment.” But
Thomas’ distinctive views are l ikely to figure in a pendin g struggle over police interrogatio ns and the Miranda wa rnings.

Under the famous 1966 Miranda vs. Arizona ruling, the court said the Constitution’s protection against self-
incrimination required officers to warn suspects of their rights to remain silent and to have a lawyer.

Last year, however, Thomas set out a much narrower view of the 5th Amendment, which says a person shall not
“be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” The word “witness” refers to a court trial,
not a police station, Thomas said.

At the time, three others agreed with him: Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Antonin Scalia.
With only one more, the court could unde rcut the basis for the Miran da warnings, whic h rest rict police questio ning.

Shortly afterward, the court took up two new cases that test the reach of the Miranda warnings. Though the
cases were argued in December, they are still awaiting decisions as the court enters the last two weeks of its term.

Court Rules Inmates Can’t Sue for Property Loss
By Robert Barnes, Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 23, 2008; A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/22/AR2008012203186.html?ref
errer=emailarticle

Abdus-Shahid M.S. Ali’s lawsuit against prison guards was based on allegations of harassment
and mistreatment. But the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday that he is barred from suing rests
on an ambiguous federal statute that has confounded the courts and sharply divided the justices.

It involves the word “any.”

Ali’s lawsuit alleging a missing Koran and prayer rug is barred under the Federal Tort Claims
Act, the court said in a 5 to 4 ruling, because the law includes prison guards among those
immune from suit.

The confusion in the courts comes because the immunity is mentioned in a section of the law that
blocks lawsuits against the government over the “loss of goods, merchandise or other property”
detained by customs or excise officers. The law then adds “or any other law enforcement officer.”

“Congress could not have chosen a more all-encompassing phrase than ‘any other law
enforcement officer’ ” to show that it intended broad immunity, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote
for the majority. Therefore, the law “forecloses lawsuits against the United States for the
unlawful detention of property by ‘any’ not just ‘some,’ law enforcement officers.”

Thomas was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader
Ginsburg and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the dissent for the rest of the court. He said the court was
wrong not to look at the context of the statute — that it related to customs rather than prisons —
and said the implications of the decision were great.

“The seizure of property by an officer raises serious concerns for the liberty of our people and the
Act should not be read to permit appropriation of property without a remedy in tort by language
so obscure and indirect,” Kennedy wrote.

Ali said in lower-court proceedings that the Koran, prayer rug and other religious materials —
worth about $177 — went missing during his transfer from a federal penitentiary in Atlanta to Big
Sandy prison in Kentucky. He alleged it was one of a number of incidents of mistreatment and
harassment of Muslim prisoners.

But a district court said the lawsuit was barred by federal law, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the 11th Circuit agreed. It is one of six circuits that have read the law to cover all law
enforcement officers, in the same manner as Thomas and the court majority. Five circuits have
read the law to limit the protection to officers performing customs or excise functions.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer agreed with Kennedy’s dissent and added his own to reinforce his view
of the importance of context.

“When I call out to my wife, ‘There isn’t any butter,’ I do not mean, ‘There isn’t any butter in
town,’ ” Breyer wrote. “The context makes clear to her that I am talking about the contents of our
refrigerator.

“That is to say, it is context, not a dictionary, that sets the boundaries of time, place and
circumstances within which words such as ‘any’ will apply,” Breyer wrote.

The court’s decision extends the law to “tens of thousands of officers performing unrelated tasks”
to those covered by the statute, Breyer said.

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