In case you didn't see, our president, Kathryn Kolbert, was quoted in the Los Angeles Times yesterday:

Some advocates worry that the perennial cries of "Roe is falling" has had the effect of muting such claims.

"What we find scary is that people don't understand what's at stake," said Kathryn Kolbert, president of People for the American Way. "In the next four years, one to as many as three Supreme Court justices may step down, and they all will come from the liberal end of the court."

It is absolutely critical that voters understand that the Supreme Court is on the ballot this Election Day.  The kind of judges the next president will nominate to the Court will determine its direction for decades.

At the Vice Presidential debate last night, Joe Biden referenced his leadership against Robert Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

And it didn't take me long -- it was hard to change, but it didn't take me long, but it took about five years for me to realize that the ideology of that judge makes a big difference.


That's why I led the fight against Judge Bork. Had he been on the court, I suspect there would be a lot of changes that I don't like and the American people wouldn't like, including everything from Roe v. Wade to issues relating to civil rights and civil liberties.

Biden is entirely correct.  The ideology of a judge matters immensely.  Right wing judges who bring a political agenda to the courts have no business being nominated or confirmed.

Of course, Joe Biden wasn’t alone in leading the fight against Bork.  People For the American Way led the campaign in the public arena, including this ad, narrated by Gregory Peck.

Here's more video from Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric — in which Couric asks her to name Supreme Court decisions she disagrees with and she lapses into confounded silence after naming only one, Roe v. Wade.

I realize that the larger thing we should be concerned about is McCain and what sorts of justices he'd nominate as president — because the next president could potentially name up to three, going by the current justices' ages and chances of retiring.

But it's worth noting (and being kinda horrified by) the fact that Palin — the person who could be, as the media likes to say, "a heartbeat away" from having the power to shape the direction the high court takes for the next 40 years — can't extemporaneously name more than one Supreme Court case she disagrees with.

COURIC: What other Supreme Court decisions [than Roe v. Wade] do you disagree with?

PALIN: Well, let's see. There's — of course — in the great history of America rulings there have been rulings, that's never going to be absolute consensus by every American. And there are — those issues, again, like Roe v Wade where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So you know — going through the history of America, there would be others but —

Video/transcript via Ben Smith of The Politico.

In an interview with Katie Couric, it appears as if Sarah Palin was unable to name a single Supreme Court case other than Roe v. Wade.

The Palin aide, after first noting how "infuriating" it was for CBS to purportedly leak word about the gaffe, revealed that it came in response to a question about Supreme Court decisions.

After noting Roe vs. Wade, Palin was apparently unable to discuss any major court cases.

There was no verbal fumbling with this particular question as there was with some others, the aide said, but rather silence.

I like to think that if prompted, she could tell us what Brown v. Board of Education accomplished, but I’ve learned not to take anything for granted.

Anyway, Sarah, allow us to tell you about one or two cases that your own running mate has had a hand in bringing about.  Thanks to the confirmation of John Roberts and Samuel Alito, you can use any of these cases to talk about how the Court affects ordinary Americans.

• Ledbetter v. Goodyear – Makes it harder for women to sue when they’ve been discriminated against.
• Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 – Makes it harder to desegregate schools.
• Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation – Makes it harder for to preserve the wall between church and state.
• Garcetti v. Ceballos – Makes it harder for students to exercise free speech.
• Gonzales v. Carhart – Makes it harder for women to get abortion procedures they need.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!  Thanks to your running mate, there are all sorts of terrible, terrible Supreme Court decisions that limit our rights and freedoms.  Better get studyin’.

At a town hall meeting last week, John McCain appeared to pledge in earnest to fight discrimination and, if necessary, take offenders to court:

But it was McCain who sided with corporate lobbyists earlier this year and opposed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Why, you might ask? He claimed “it would lead to more lawsuits.”

Later, at a different town hall meeting, he told a 14-year-old girl that the Fair Pay Act wouldn’t help anyone but “trial lawyers and others in that profession.”

What’s worse, McCain has helped confirm hundreds of right-wing federal judges to the very courts that he claims he would use to fight discrimination. The problem is, those judges – including Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito – have consistently whittled away at Americans’ protections against discrimination. And they’ve made it increasingly difficult for those Americans’ who do suffer discrimination to win just compensation.

The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, for instance, was created to undo the damage done by the Supreme Court in the Ledbetter ruling, which made it easier for companies to get away with pay discrimination. McCain not only endorsed the ruling, but he has vowed to nominate more judges like the ruling’s author – Justice Samuel Alito.

If McCain wanted to try some real straight talk for a change, he’d simply tell the women of America that under a McCain administration, they’d be on their own.

Earlier this week, People For the American Way Foundation released its Human Toll report with eye-opening stories of American men, women and children whose cases have come before judges nominated by George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate. It puts a human face on the dangers posed by the political ideology of Bush judges. They are not alone in coming to this conclusion.  Check out this op ed in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. And check out as well this piece in the Legal Times on the recent Brookings Institution study indicating that under a McCain presidency, Republicans could increase their current 15 percent majority on federal courts of appeals by another 18 percent.  Thanks to my colleague Glenn Sugameli at Earthjustice for bringing these items to my attention.

Legal terms are often so dry that it's hard to get excited about them.  After all, who could possibly be affected by something as abstract as "preemption?"

From the Times:

In the spring of 2000, suffering from a migraine, Ms. Levine visited a clinic near here for a treatment she had received many times: Demerol for the pain and Wyeth’s drug Phenergan for nausea.

“Nothing wrong with either drug,” Ms. Levine said. “They’re both safe when given the right way.”

But if Phenergan is exposed to arterial blood, it causes swift and irreversible gangrene.

You can imagine how this story ends.  Diane Levine, a musician, lost her arm because of improperly administered medication (which didn't give appropriate warning on the lable), and now the pharmacutical company insists that she's not allowed to sue under state law.

Now the case is coming to the Supreme Court, which hasn't been a particularly good friend to people like Ms. Levine these last few years.

This is a perfect example of the up-is-down, black-is-white argument that the right has been making (and winning) in courts: that the FDA should protect pharmacutical companies, not individual Americans, when something goes horribly wrong.

Today, People For the American Way Foundation* put out a report titled The Human Toll: How Individual Americans Have Fared at the Hands of Bush Judges.  It’s essentially a review of the stories of individual Americans who have found themselves in front of judges put on the bench by George W. Bush.  In many cases, the result isn’t pretty.

With that in mind, let me point out an important fact: John McCain has supported every single one of George Bush’s judicial nominees.

So, for that matter, have most of the incumbent GOP Senators up for reelection this year.  John Sununu (NH), Elizabeth Dole (NC), Ted Stevens (AK), Gordon Smith (OR), Norm Coleman (MN), James Inhofe (OK), and John Cornyn (TX) are probably the ones in the closest races.

You might want to keep that in mind while you read the report.  It’s a pretty interesting read, if I do say so myself.

* - (Which is affiliated with People For the American Way in ways too complicated to get into here.)

As you may have seen, the Obama campaign is running ads focusing on McCain’s opposition to fair pay for women.  I think it’s safe to say that everyone around here is glad to see Obama talking about the issue and eager to see McCain’s response.

But looking at the conversation, it’s important to remember that we aren’t moving forward on this issue.  Thanks to the Supreme Court, we’re actually moving backwards.  It was, after all, the very bad decision to take away Lilly Ledbetter’s fair pay that brought pay discrimination to the fore.  And regardless of whether or not we manage to pass the Fair Pay Act, more bad Supreme Court Justices could make the situation much, much worse.

Our friends at the National Organization of Women have put together a great fact sheet on Equal Pay which is fascinating and disturbing at the same time.  (Via Dana Goldstien at TAPPED)

The New York Times reports a declining reliance around the world on what American justices have to say.

And I thought we couldn’t slip any further in the eyes of the world.

Of particular note:

The new [more sophisticated constitutional courts around the world] are, moreover, generally more liberal than the Rehnquist and Roberts courts and for that reason more inclined to cite one another.

Read the full article here.