Hat-tip to Paul Cassell at the Volokh Conspiracy for the link to the text of Senator McCain's speech on his judicial appointment philosophy. The speech was given today at Wake Forest University and outlines McCain's conservative philosophy of appointing qualified judges to positions in the federal courts. For McCain, qualified judges are those who will apply the Constitution, and the laws of democratically elected representatives, to each case at hand. This would include "people in the cast of John Roberts, Samuel Alito, and the late William Rehnquist" because these were jurists "who knew their own minds, and know the law, and know the difference." McCain was particularly careful to point out that his appointments would understand the "clear limits to the scope of judicial power" as well as "the clear limits of the federal power."
In today's speech, McCain made it clear he will not be appointing activist judges in the federal courts. McCain's speech indicates he will seek to appoint justices who do not decide issues of law based on "my own experience" as Justice Stevens recently did in Baze v. Rees, and McCain would not appoint justices who base their decisions on "evolving standards of decency" and international norms, and not the U.S. Constitution. McCain views such decisions as abuses of judicial power, and such abuses of power are detrimental to our Constitution and the framer's design for democracy.
It's good to see McCain articulate his policy on judicial appointments. Based on his history with the "Gang of 14" and his tough stance on campaign-finance reform, there was some speculation that as President McCain might not appoint judicial conservatives. Back in February, Steven Calabresi and John McGinnis had this op-ed at the Wall Street Journal addressing that very issue. However after today's speech it seems clear that McCain will take care to appoint justices who view the Constitution, and the law, as contracts between the people and their government, as understood at the time of the law's enactment, and not based on a Justice's personal perspective of how the world should work.
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