On 10 August, 2005, the Chicago Sun-Times website published an article which (accidentally) revealed the nature of the new President of the American Bar Association, Michael Greco. The revelation came not from what the article said, but what it did not say. Both the APA President and the reporter should have noticed the holes in the article, entitled "Courts threatened by extremists: ABA leader."
President Greco’s politics are suggested here: "He also asked the Rev. Robert Drinan, a former Democratic U.S. representative from Massachusetts and his mentor at Boston College Law School, to stand." Father Drinan was one of the most far-left members to serve in the House, as political junkies know, but the reporter does not mention.
Greco proposed to send lawyers into schools to teach civics. He was "alarmed" that 40 percent of Americans cannot name the three branches of government and 48 percent cannot explain "separation of powers." Immediately after that, Greco demonstrated that he does not understand those subjects. He said, "Our own courts are under unprecedented attack. They are being threatened by extremists, who would tear down our courts for political or financial gain."
Those attacking recent Supreme Court decisions, especially Kelo which ruled 5 to 4, that New London could take people’s homes and give them to other private owners, are only insisting that the Justices of the Court (like other Americans) should obey the Constitution. This is not an "extremist" position, except to the likes of Senator Ted Kennedy. Separation of powers fails when judges thumb their nose at the law and the Constitution.
If obeying the Constitution is "extremism," it is a characteristic shared by all of the Founders. Two quotes will suffice: George Washington, in his Farewell Address to the American People, wrote: "the Constitution, unless amended by the authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all." Thomas Jefferson, in the Kentucky Resolutions, wrote, "Put not your faith in men, but bind them down with the chains of the Constitution."
The ABA President is blithely unaware that the Constitution has been under attack for more than a generation by Justices who think they own it and have the power to revise it as they see fit. It is only common sense, that the Court should begin respecting the Constitution again.
Greco’s comments and politics demonstrate why tens of thousands of lawyers have resigned from the ABA, and why hundreds of thousands have declined to join it, so its membership is about half today what it was twenty years ago.
John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
