Barack Obama apparently does not have a litmus test for supreme court justices as long as they support abortion. LifeNews reports a recent email the Obama campaign sent:
"While I have no litmus test for judges, my bottom line is confidence that a judicial nominee will respect the constitutionally protected rights of all Americans and resist the temptation to substitute personal ideology for legal reasoning," the campaign said for the candidate."I believe, however, that a judicial nominee with a history of undermining settled law like Roe v. Wade deserves greater scrutiny," the email continued. "Nominees to the federal bench who are out-of-step with mainstream America should not be confirmed. That is why in the past I have opposed the nominations of Supreme Court Justices Roberts and Alito."
Steve Ertlet makes a good point that "the issue hasn't received near the national attention it normally does in a presidential election year."
"[M]y bottom line is [] that a judicial nominee will...resist the temptation to substitute personal ideology for legal reasoning...[H]owever,[] a judicial nominee with a history of undermining settled law like Roe v. Wade deserves greater scrutiny."
And this guy taught constitutional law? Yikes! I'll explain.
(1) His bottom line is supposedly that a judicial nominee will not substitute personal ideology for legal reasoning.
(2) But then he cautions that a judicial nominee who "undermines" Roe deserves greater scrutiny.
This makes no sense! (1 undercuts (2) and vice versa. Justice Blackmun (author of Roe) found "penumbras" and "emanations" floating around the Constitution so that he could substitute his personal ideology for actual legal reasoning.
And while his reference to stare decisis is valid, the Supreme Court regularly ignores stare decisis and overturns precedent, sometimes its own precedent. So while a lower court judge must abide by stare decisis, a Supreme Court justice is not under the same obligation.