What’s the Best Way to Educate Voters?
April 7, 2010
“The root of the problem,” former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor recently told a group of Pomona College students, “is ignorance about the role of the judiciary. The long-term solution to that problem is education….And in order to do this we need to bring real and meaningful civics education back into our classrooms…” (Audio of speech available here).
Hey, I’m all for teaching “meaningful civics education” in our schools, rather than the drivel that too often passes for history (excuse me, Social Studies) in today’s classrooms. But there is another very powerful tool our democracy’s Founders devised to overcome voter “ignorance” – to use Justice O’Connor’s harsh phrase. That tool is called an election.
Elections educate voters about the ideas that animate our public servants. They help us discern what character traits our public officials bring to their high offices. They ensure that every interested voter has access to the information he/she needs to make informed choices.
Unfortunately, Justice O’Connor opposes elections – at least when it comes to choosing who controls our state judiciaries. Instead, she supports a system where a tiny handful of elites, rather than millions of voters, meet in secret to determine who is worthy to hold some of the most powerful jobs in government. This group of elites is unelected and unaccountable, with no obligation to explain its reasoning to ordinary citizens, but instead simply emerges from its Mt. Sinai with tablets inscribed with the list of names of our judges, leaving the rest of us to gawk and wonder at their magnificence.
Can anyone seriously believe that this so-called “merit” selection system is a better way to educate voters than democratic elections?
Posted by Dan Pero in the categories: Citizens United, Judicial Elections, O'Connor Judicial Selection Initiative
One Response to “What’s the Best Way to Educate Voters?”
Under our Constitution we were supposed to have had LIMITED government. At some point, as government gets bigger, we as individuals, and as We The People, get smaller.
Government becomes to big too work.. Too big too govern. To big too hold accountable.
As has been said, when the People fear the government, they have tyranny; when the government fears the People, they have Liberty. In the 2005, 5/4 USSC decisiion about eminent domain - Kleo v. City of New London (CT.), that eviserated the the “public use” clause from the 5th Amendment, Justice O’Connor to her credit a dissenter there, later told ASU law students that Kelo was “pretty scary” and “fuzzy jurisprudence”. (See “O’Connor Notres ‘Scary” Court Decision”, by Joe Kamman, 9/20/05 The Arizona Rrepublic - http://www.zazcentral.com)
The U.S. Supreme Court justices are not elected - and no one is more responsible for this government growing out of control than them. Why whould anyone want to give them more power? They unconstitutionally gave themselves absolute judicial immunity - which cover corrupt & malicious acts - in Bradley v. Fisher, 80 U.S. 335 (1872); see also Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U.S. 349 (1978). Tiis inverted the sovereignty of We the People, making our servants our masters.
Recently in Wilkes-Barre, PA - 6,500 juvenile cases were reveresed and vacated becasue ;judges odered children into incarceration on minor beefs (many had no counsel) in exchange for cash - bribes - the “Cash for Kids” scandal. Our judiciary is unacountable and Justice O’Connor never speaks about this.