Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

The little Pink House in New London was moved to another location after a long, unsuccessful protest by its owner, property rights advocate Susette Kelo. The property upon which it rested was seized by eminent domain so that it could be made available to Pfizer Inc. It was a rare seizure. Usually, property seized under eminent domain is made available for some public purpose. In Kelo, the Fort Trumbull Property was transferred from one private owner to another private owner to further economic development . The property was seized by the state because New London wished to induce Pfizer to set up shop on the property. Pfizer moved on; nature soon reclaimed the vacant property. Kelo lost her battle when the US Supreme Court shamelessly decided in favor of the City of New London, Kelo v. City of New London , 545 U.S. 469 (2005). The case produced two notable dissents, one written by Justice O'Connor, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Scalia and Thomas, and...

At the end of March, U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal announced in a Hartford Courant Op-Ed column that he “will vote against the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch as United States Supreme Court Justice.” His reasons for doing so do not bear close examination, but they correspond neatly to the reasons offered by other Democrats, demonstrating perhaps that Blumenthal is a reliable Democratic Party soldier who comes when he’s called and goes when he’s ordered to do so by U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, the unacknowledged propaganda chief of  the party. Had Hillary Clinton won the presidency in her contest with Donald Trump, whose ideology is blurry, Blumenthal would be taking his marching orders from Mrs. Clinton. Alas, as the poet tells us, “the best laid plans of mice and men are often torn asunder.” Mr. Trump was elected President, the House and Senate were lost to Republicans, and Democrats have been choking on bile ever since.

U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal was mentioned early in March in connection with the nomination to the Supreme Court of Judge Neil Gorsuch, described by The Hill , not a far right publication, as “a conservative judge who has attracted praise from both sides of the aisle.” Gorsuch, if his nomination passes muster with the U.S. Congress, will be replacing Justice Antonin Scalia, widely regarded as a conservative member of the court. Should Democrats fail to oppose Gorsuch with the proper vigor, progressives warn they will turn their big guns on them.

Months ago, budget guru Ben Barnes, asked why he was taxing hospitals, replied “ because that’s where the money is .” It has been left to others to plumb new tax resources. A tax on hospitals would invariably be passed along to the halt, the lame, the blind and the bleeding, and taxing these poor souls might well damage permanently the hard won reputation of the Democratic Party as the champion of the halt, the lame, the blind and the bleeding. But Yale?

It is extremely important to understand what the U.S. Supreme Court did AND DID NOT say concerning two cases it reviewed involving gay marriage. In neither case did the court issue a finding on the constitutionality of gay marriage. In a case involving Proposition 8 in California, a legally binding ballot initiative that banned gay marriage, the court declined to make a judgment and tossed the tennis ball back to a lower court. The issue before the court was whether the supporters of the Proposition 8 ballot initiative had legal "standing" to defend it in court after state officials had declined to appeal a finding issued by a lower court against the ballot initiative. The court ruled that those challenging the lower court decision had no legal standing to do so.  

Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Antonin Scalia is perhaps the nation’s foremost advocate and interpreter of orginalism, a mode of constitutional interpretation. The chief business of the Supreme Court, both originalists and non-originalists will agree, lies in Constitutional interpretation, a task that no Supreme Court justice may responsibly avoid. Mr. Scalia’s views on originalism have been widely disseminated; the justice has not in the past hidden his light under a bushel basket. An address on orginalism delivered twenty three years ago at the University of Cincinnati during the William Howard Taft Constitutional Law Lecture is available to every reporter in the state at the click of a mouse. In that widely available lecture, Mr. Scalia dilates on the defects of non-orginalist interpretation. Briefly, non-orginalism binds constitutional interpretation to what has been called “the living constitution,” which is to say the constitution as interpreted by justices o...

It is fascinating that the First Amendment is of enormous concern today as it was to our Founding Fathers. It was not originally in the Constitution, which nearly prevented the Constitution from being ratified. Madison opposed adding it to the Constitution but in the end had to give way. To secure ratification, he had to promise that once the Constitution was ratified, it would be added, and so it was. The Supreme Court on January 21 invalidated laws that made certain kinds of political speech by corporations a crime. Critics fear corporate corruption or a diminution of democracy or both. Thus: "What a terrible day for American democracy. . . . [A] deeply divided Supreme Court has essentially given corporations free rein to drown out the voices of the American people, rejecting the secret democratic principle of 'one person, one vote.'"—Senator Dodd "[W]e’re being told that an extremely vituperative expression of disdain for a candidate for president in Ame...