Harry Reid Slams Supreme Court Justices John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy For Campaign Finance Decision
The president and his aides aren't the only Democrats throwing unusually sharp and public jabs at the conservative members of the Supreme Court.
On Wednesday Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he was "so disappointed" with the Court's swing vote -- Justice Anthony M. Kennedy -- for enabling the court's rightward, corporatist tilt. As for Chief Justice John Roberts, the majority leader castigated him as being out of touch and completely detached from political reality.
"Do you think John Roberts knows or cares how people get elected?" he said, referring to the role the chief justice played in crafting the court's Citizens United decision.
Insisting that the court was engaged in "activism" for allowing corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on congressional campaigns, the Nevada Democrat insisted that the time had come to stop appointing judges to the bench.
"I think we've had enough of them," he said. "I think what we need are people on that bench who have been legislators, people who are lawyers, people who are academics. You look at our Supreme Court and all these people, all they know is working with people in black robes. We have got to change that."
Reid named names.
"I'll give you an example," he said. "Sandra Day O'Connor. She was a legislator. She was elected to the legislature in Arizona. She would never have let that case go forward. She would not have. She understood how hard it is to run for public office."
On the verge of further ripping "those characters" on the court, Reid paused. "I guess that's enough of that," he said, just as he was about to share his opinion of Justice Samuel Alito, another staunch conservative. The crowd of progressive media begged him to keep going. But he thought better of it and moved on.
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First Posted: 05/10/10 06:12 AM ET Updated: 05/25/11 04:45 PM ET