There’s nothing subtle about House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the take-no-prisoners political operator who revels in his role as The Hammer of Capitol Hill. But in raising the possibility of attempting to impeach some of the federal judges who ruled in the Terri Schiavo case, DeLay has recklessly threatened to take a hammer to the constitutional separation of powers. His attack is disgraceful.
“We will look at an unaccountable, arrogant, out-of-control judiciary that thumbed their nose at Congress and the president,” DeLay (R-Texas) told reporters in Houston soon after Schiavo’s death Thursday. That’s nothing new for DeLay, who in the past has threatened to impeach federal judges for rulings that were not to his liking on such issues as school prayer.
But let’s be clear: Whatever philosophical, moral and political disagreements on the course of action that led to the removal of Schiavo’s feeding tube, at every level the judges followed the law. They continued to follow the law, even after DeLay and others pushed Congress to enter the case with quickly passed legislation that was signed March 21 by President Bush.
Congress had no business bulling into this case by passing a law specifically designed to get the Schiavo case before a federal court.
U.S. District Judge James Whittemore declined to order the reinsertion of Schiavo’s feeding tube. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling and later declined a last-ditch appeal by Schiavo’s parents to intervene. The U.S. Supreme Court also declined to intervene.
The case riveted the country, caused a national debate about the right to life and the right to die and the rights of a severely brain damaged woman. The courts ruled with great care.
Congress and the various state legislatures may see this case as an occasion to revisit existing laws on such life-and-death decisions. At the least, the Schiavo case should spur everyone to exercise legal documents so their own wishes are clearly known.
But for DeLay to suggest that judges might be removed because their rulings were not to his liking–that’s an abuse of power. Those words DeLay used about the judges–“unaccountable, arrogant, out-of-control.” Well, they’re far more apt for describing the congressman himself.
