You can feel the fury that must have been pouring out of Dahlia Lithwick's fingers as she typed her piece on the legality--or lack thereof--of the bill President Bush signed this morning to force the Terri Schiavo case into a federal court. Angry or not, though, she's exactly right:
Let's be clear: The piece of legislation passed late last night, the so-called "Palm Sunday Compromise," has nothing whatever to do with the rule of law. The rule of law in this country holds that this is a federalist system—in which private domestic matters are litigated in state, not federal courts. The rule of law has long provided that such domestic decisions are generally made by competent spouses, as opposed to parents, elected officials, popular referendum, or the demands of Randall Terry. The rule of law also requires a fundamental separation of powers—in which legislatures do not override final, binding court decisions solely because the outcome is not the one they like. The rule of law requires comity between state and federal courts—wherein each respects and upholds the jurisdiction and authority of the other. The rule of law requires that we look skeptically at legislation aimed at mucking around with just one life to the exclusion of any and all similarly situated individuals.That a party obsessed, until recently, with keeping government as far away from as many facets of life as possible would be the one to perpetrate such a fraud is both sad and ironic. When the judge gets around to ruling, the only decision he should be able to reach is to declare that the hastily-made law that put the case in his lap in the first place is unconstitutional. That would put this in the hands of the Supreme Court, no? I'd love to see how Scalia teases legality for the Schiavo bill out of his interpretation of the Constitution!
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