OPINION:
I have been following the Ketanji Brown Jackson nomination hearings. Is it not astounding that one of the most important lines of questioning is suspiciously absent? That line is, how does one legitimately determine when an act violates a provision of our federal Constitution or its constitutionally delegated powers?
In 1968 at a lecture at Columbia University Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black emphatically pointed out: “The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges’ views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice.”
So how does one who is sincerely determined to be obedient to the Constitution, which Supreme Court Justices take an oath to do, determine when an act violates a provision of our federal Constitution or goes beyond delegated constitutional limits?
Having been dedicated to answering these very questions for over 40 years, I must say Thomas Jefferson was spot on when he addressed this very subject and wrote: “On every question of construction [of the Constitution], carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”
Indeed, those who reject abiding by the text of our Constitution and the intentions and beliefs under which it was agreed to wish to remove the anchor and rudder of our constitutional system so they may then be free to “interpret” the Constitution to mean whatever they wish it to mean.
So I ask once again, why is it that one of the most important lines of questioning has not been asked of Judge Jackson?
JOHN KUROWSKI
Seminole, Florida
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