Politicization of Federal Justice System Undermines Rule of Law

Bush 43 has exceeded all expectations. All presidents are expected to put their 'brand' on the agencies and operations of the federal government. However, 43's brand undermines the rule of law and threatens our constitution and its separation of powers. If the Congress passes a law he doesn't like, he simply issues a signing statement and does as he pleases. According to the 4/30/06 Boston Globe, while few were paying attention, 43 has stated his authority to disobey or ignore more than 750 laws passed since he took office. This is more than the last several presidents combined.

If he dislikes laws passed previously, his administration - specifically his politically hired or fired U. S. Attorneys - selectively enforce federal the laws. In 2004 an analysis of Justice Department data done by Syracuse University found that in the first years of 43's administration, prosecutions of civil rights violations fell by more than 33%, even though the number of complaints remained the same. The only other category of federal prosecutions to suffer a similar decline was environmental violations. No surprise from the president that refuses to accept the urgency of global warming.

If all else fails and a civil rights case does make it to the Federal Courts, the conservative judges are there to see to it that corporate interests prevail. Republican presidents have been appointing lower court federal judges for 18 of the past 26 years. In its two most recent civil rights cases, even the relatively conservative Supreme Court overruled the lower courts and did so unanimously. These lower courts had been requiring extremely strict thresholds of proof for plaintiffs and had failed to protect plaintiffs from retaliation.