Tuesday, May 26, 2009 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Se5 E-MAIL BELLA AT BELLZ@UMICH.EDU Judging Jenny BELLA SHAH The Obama administration's search for the next Supreme Court Justice is under way. Justice David Souter's retire- , ment announce- ment earlier g this month has opened up a seat on the bench. The Associated - Press seems con- CHRIS vinced that a face KOSLOWSI familiar to most Michiganders - Governor Jennifer Granholm - is on the President's short listcofonomi- nees. It's easy to see why. Granhom is young, recognizable, female and reliably liberal. But despite her appeal to President Barack Obama, Granholm's nomination would set a devastating standard that could threaten the federal government's system of checks and balances. Let's get one undeniable fact out of the way first. Despite Obama's repeated campaign promises to govern moderately, he's already taken huge steps to expand the government's influence with little regard for his opposition's opinion. Assuming the likely scenario that Norm Coleman loses his appeal of Al Franken's victory in last Novem- ber's disputed Minnesota Senate race, the Democrats will control 60 Senate seats. This supermajority will block any Republican filibus- ter against Obama's nominee. This is Obama's golden opportunity to nominate a justice that will fill the shoes of the consistently liberal Souter with little opposition. One might think an absolute- ly necessary requirement for a Supreme Court justice would be experience as a judge. Granholm has none. She was elected Michi- gan's attorney general in 1998 and governor in 2002. In fact, her quali- fications are frightfully similar to one of Obama's admitted heroes - Earl Warren. The Supreme Court chief justice - who was also a for- mer attorney general and governor at the time of his nomination - pre- sided over rulings that extended the court's influence. Granted, Warren Court rulings like Brown v. Board of Education instigated needed change in American law, but the precedent set by Warren pushed the once traditional court into a battle between the philosophies of judicial activism and judicial restraint that still rages. But there is a major difference between Warren and Granholm. During his political career, War- ren earned universal support from across the party spectrum. In the 1946 California gubernatorial elec- tion, Warren won the Republican, Democratic and Progressive Party primaries. Granholm, on the other hand, has participated in three divi- sive elections in which her political biases were on full display. If nomi- nated, Granholm could be the most politically charged justice in over50 years, and the first inthis new era of power for the Supreme Court. A nomination of such a political figure would cause more damage than any other nominee on Obama's short list. For example, Diane Wood, a U.S. Court of Appeals judge from Chicago. leans to the left and is a favorite to receive Obama's nomi- nation. Her rulings might be just as liberal as Granholm's would be, but at least her appointment wouldn't jeopardize the Court's credibility. Gov. Granholm is too partisan to be a justice. The appointment of career poli- ticians like Granholm to the Court would undermine its separation from the executive and legislative branches. There is a reason why justices are traditionally non-polit- ical figures and are given lifetime terms. The Supreme Court is sup- posed to transcend politics in order to correctly apply our laws without bias. The nomination of a blatantly political justice would only increase these problems and is the last thing the court needs, especially when the court wields so much power and is more politicized than ever. Despite the ease with which her confirmation could pass the Senate, Granholm would be one of the least qualified and most politicized jus- tices in the last 100 years. Residing in a judicial body which is supposed to interpretthelawinapoliticallyunbi- ased way, Granholm would be exact- lythe kind ofvoicethattheFounding Fathers were trying to keep out of the nation's highest court. There's hope that Obama is smart* enough to realize he doesn't need to corrupt the Supreme Court with party politics in order to nominate a justice that will reliably walk the liberal line. But with a potential nominee as politically attractive as Granholm, I'm hesitant to believe he'll be able resist her appeal. -Chris Koslowski can be reached at cskoslow(a umich.edu. qat Wi~i AWNSC (jsriS . A AW De - - e t e ZSwiSt t A~U--^- 90 4 k7(/ ~ J~ T he idea of "campaign promises" is self-explan- atory. Once elected to office, candi- dates are sup- posed to follow through on the pledges they made while on the cam- paign trail. But by bungling ED the closing of MCPHEE Guantanamo Bay prison and failing to scrap the Military Com- missions Act, President Barack Obama is not fulfilling those promises. His campaign promise was that he would reject the Military Com- missions Act - the legislation that has made prisons like Gitmo a threat to constitutional rights. He instead revised its interpreta- tion, while still allowing confes- sions coerced through torture as legal evidence in court and sus- pending habeas corpus rights - allowing enemy combatants now classified as "prisoners of war" to be detained indefinitely without charges filed against them. Though the United States Supreme Court ruled that the enemy combatants held at Gitmo have a right to challenge their imprisonment in 2008, Obama said in a speech at the National Archives on Thursday that "if and when we determine that the Unit- ed States must hold individuals to keep them from carrying out an act of war, we will do so within a system that involves judicial and congressional oversight." Through this statement, Obama admitted that if his administra- tion decides that any of those held at Gitmo could carry out an act of war, he will be held indefinitely with judicial and congressional oversight, not permission. Closing Gitmo without end- ing actions like these is an empty victory for freedom. Obama is trying to play America for a fool. He's panderingto those who were vehemently opposed to President George Bush's civil right viola- tions without actually changing the policy. The point of closing Gitmo was to put an end to the Military Commissions Act. The end of Gitmo was supposed to be a victory for freedom-lovers every- where, but every minute the Mili- tary Commissions Act endures, it becomes more of a defeat. Obama. campaigned under messages of hope and change, yet he's con- tinuing the behavior that made so many citizens angry about losing their constitutional rights. Unfortunately, politicians are ignoring this facet of closing Gitmo. As it stands right now, the biggest political outcry is Obama's lack of a plan for the cur- rent detainees. Their concern is that closing the facility is a dan- gerous but necessary solution to the U.S.'s detainee problems. But closing the facility is nei- ther dangerous nor a solution to these problems. Transferring the detainees to other prisons doesn't stop the constitutional rights abuse, it merely continues the government's denial that it is acting unethically. And moving detainees to new prisons, possi- bly inside the U.S., doesn't make the nation any less safe. As long as detainees aren't released, they don't pose a great risk to the pub- lic. As Obama himself pointed out in his speech Thursday, "Nobody has ever escaped from one of our 'supermax' prisons, which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists." With this ongoing debate, poli- ticians - and the general public - continue to be distracted from the fact that Obama continues to hold suspected terrorists with- out charging them with an actual crime. What is at great risk here is the continued abuse of con- stitutional rights. Habeas cor- pus rights are guaranteed by the United States constitution for a reason. Their denial is unethical, inhumane and in direct contra- diction to the rule of law that we value in the U.S. Habeas corpus shouldn't only be for citizens. It's funny that in Obama's speech he stood adjacent to the Constitution. He called it "the foundation of liberty and justice in this country, and a light that shines for all who seek freedom, fairness, equality and dignity in the world." That's ironic, consid- ering the Military Commissions Act has angered several European nations, and many liberty-based activistgroups such as the Ameri- can Civil Liberties Union. I'm not naive enough to think that all of the detainees at Gitmo are innocent just because they haven't been charged. This is a dangerous time, but that's what makes it more important than ever to protect basic constitutioi- al rights. Obama needs to either end this mess or stop masquerad- ing as a protector of the American people. When Gitmo closes, he should end the Military Commis- sions Act. Doing so could restore the nation's faith in him as an actual change from Bush. -Ed McPhee can be reached at emcphee@umich.edu.