Editorial: DeLay & Co. run amok

Friday, April 8, 2005 | 5:07 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

April 9 - 10, 2005

Shortly after Terri Schiavo's death, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay delivered an ominous warning to the judicial branch of government. The Texas Republican, nicknamed "The Hammer" for good reason, suggested that judges who had ruled a feeding tube could be removed from the brain-damaged Schiavo might be hauled before Congress to testify about their decisions. "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior," DeLay said. So much for an independent judiciary.

A few days later, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, in a speech on the Senate floor, speculated about the possibility that recent deadly attacks against judges might be due to judicial activism: "I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions, yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in violence -- certainly without any justification, but that is a concern I have that I wanted to share."

A day later Cornyn backed away from his outrageous remarks, which could be construed as condoning violence, but DeLay wasn't about to tone down the rhetoric. Instead, he sought to ramp it up in videotaped remarks he made on Thursday before a conservative conference in Washington, whose fair-and-balanced theme was titled "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith." DeLay said federal judges had "run amok" because Congress was afraid to rein them in. "This era of constitutional cowardice must end," DeLay said. Michael Schwartz, the chief of staff to Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, suggested during a panel discussion on abortion that impeachment might be an option in dealing with some judges. The New York Times reported that Schwartz said those federal judges who ruled in the Schiavo case would be first in line. "I hope they serve long sentences," Schwart z said.

Basically, it's come down to this: If DeLay and other right-wing members of Congress don't like a judicial decision, they'll use bullying tactics to try to get their way. What's particularly interesting in the Schiavo case is that the state and federal judges who made many of the pivotal rulings were Republicans and conservatives. The bottom line is that the Schiavo case wasn't about judicial activism: The facts and the law dictated that the feeding tube be removed. Period.

President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., have tried to put distance between themselves and DeLay & Co., saying they believe in an independent judiciary. But, weakly, they've done nothing to condemn such intimidation by DeLay. Indeed, while DeLay speaks of Congress' "cowardice" in dealing with the judiciary, the cowardice being displayed is by fellow Republicans who have failed to call DeLay to task for seeking to undo the Constitution by trampling on the independence of a separate, but equal, branch of government.