Principles or Partisanship? Tea Party Nation Response to Elena Kagan is the Tipoff

As I’ve noted before, I have no doubt that many people attending Tea Party events are doing so with sincere motivations. Although I may disagree with many of the substantive positions of these participants, they have my respect for taking their positions to the street in a commitment to citizen activism.

But then there are the Tea Party organizations, like Tea Party Express (founded by Republican consultants), Tea Party Patriots (run out of a private Republican consulting firm that handles Virginia GOP and GOPAC websites), and then there’s Tea Party Nation. Tea Party Nation not registered as a Section 527 organization with the IRS, and it is not registered as a PAC with the FEC. As Sourcewatch documents, Tea Party Nation is a for-profit corporation registered in the state of Tennessee.

What’s driving Tea Party Nation besides profit? Does Tea Party Nation act according to principles or according to partisan loyalties? In an e-mail blast sent out yesterday shortly after the nomination of Elena Kagan to be a Supreme Court Justice, Tea Party Nation answered that question. It’s the latter. I include the entire text of that e-mail blast below, just so you won’t think I’m flubbing:

Tea Party Nation opposes Elena Kagan to be the next Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Elena Kagan’s nomination came as no great shock. The Obama administration and it’s willing allies in the media are spinning the story that Kagan is just “one of the people.” Nothing could be further from the truth

Kagan was chosen by Obama for a number of reasons. First, she has a very thin paper trail. She has not served as a Judge and her academic writings are limited so, the administration hopes she will fly under the radar.

Second, Obama has chosen someone who is as radical as he is. Remember, Obama wants to transform this country from a right of center country, to a European style socialist country. He knows the congress is going to go from Democratic controlled to either Republican controlled or split evenly. To get much of his agenda enacted or saved, he is going to need control of the judiciary.

In 2001, Obama, not even a US Senator at the time, gave an interview to WBEZ in Chicago. In that interview, he criticized the Warren court, which at the time was the most liberal court this country had ever seen. Obama said:

“The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent, as radical I think as people tried to characterize the Warren court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers and the Constitution. At least as it’s been interpreted.”

This is what Obama wants in Supreme Court Justices.

Right now, the court is divided, with a minority liberal block consisting of Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg and Sotomayor. Stevens is retiring. Breyer and Sotomayor are young and healthy, by Supreme Court standards. Ginsburg has had some health problems. By replacing Stevens with Kagan, there will be at least three liberal members on the court for the next 20 years. If Ginsburg were to retire, he could solidify the liberal wing of the court in place for the next 20 years.

The Conservative wing of the court is made of of Chief Justice Roberts, Justices Alito, Thomas and Scalia. Justice Kennedy remains a “swing” vote.

Kennedy and Scalia are both 74. Age is a consideration and if one of them were to leave the court, Obama could have the opportunity to remake a liberal court that would severe our judicial system from all remaining ties to the Constitution.

Kagan must be stopped.

Here is what we need to do.

Our best chance to stop Kagan is in the judiciary committee. We need to contact all of the Republicans on that committee and get them all to vote no. The nomination cannot leave the committee without at least one republican vote.

The Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are:

Jeff Sessions R-AL
Orin Hatch R-UT
Chuck Grassley R-Iowa
Jon Kyl R-AZ
Lindsey Graham R-SC
John Cornyn R-TX
Tom Coburn R-OK

We need to let them know in no uncertain terms that we do not want Kagan’s nomination voted out of the Judiciary Committee. Time is on our side. If we work now, we can stop her nomination. All it takes is work on our part and some courage from the Republicans in the Senate.

Contrary to the myth that is repeated by certain Republicans, the President is not entitled to his nominee. The role of the Senate is to give advice and consent for that nomination. Their role is also to represent we the people. And we the people do not want this radical leftist to get a life time appointment to the Nation’s highest court.

Act today and forward this email to your friends and ask them to act too.

What don’t you see in that e-mail blast? You don’t see a single substantive fact regarding the life, accomplishments or positions of Elena Kagan. Not a single fact about Elena Kagan drives Tea Party Nation into its opposition, except for the fact that she is the nominee of President Barack Obama. The single fact of Kagan’s nomination by Barack Obama is enough to drive Tea Party Nation into immediate activist opposition mode. That’s not the action of a principle-driven group. It’s the action of an organization with partisan motivations.

What do you see in that e-mail blast? You see a willingness to flat-out lie about history in order to make a partisan point. The quote from Barack Obama on January 18, 2001 is a partial quote. If you care about the truth, listen to the entire Chicago Public Radio interview (RealAudio required). Barack Obama was not criticizing the Warren Court for not venturing into the redistribution of wealth. Barack Obama commends the Warren Court for its procedural reticence and says that it is the job of legislators, or of state judges working under different state constitutions, to craft economic policy — not federal judges. Tea Party Nation doesn’t quote an earlier discussion in that interview, in which Obama notes with approval the Warren Court’s decision that its powers couldn’t be used to redistribute wealth:

Dennis Hutchinson: And the federal constitution doesn’t provide any warrant for intervention.

Barack Obama: Exactly. So, what’s interesting is that suddenly, a whole bunch of people start bringing these claims to state courts…

Barack Obama goes on later to lament that civil rights organizations relied too much on the courts to obtain justice, and not enough on extra-judicial political activity:

Dennis Hutchison: The idea that you could use the due process clause for redistributive ends, socially, that would be stable I think was an astonishing assumption in the mind of litigators about what they could accomplish over time, and it just didn’t last very long.

Barack Obama: And it essentially has never happpened. If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it I’d be okay.

But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society, and to that extent as radical as people tried to characterize the Warren court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it’s been interpreted, and the Warren court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can’t do to you, it says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn’t shifted.

One of the I think, the tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change and in some ways we still suffer from that.

Later, after discussion of the procedural importance of Bush v. Gore, a caller comes on to specifically ask whether it is appropriate for the Supreme Court to be using its powers for the redistribution of wealth:

Moderator Gretchen Helfrich: Let’s talk with Karen. Good morning, Karen, you’re on Chicago Public Radio.

Karen: Hi. The gentleman made the point that the Warren Court wasn’t terribly radical, my question is, with economic changes. My question is, is it too late for that kind of reparative work economically and is that that the appropriate place for reparative economic work to take place?

Helfrich: You mean the Court?

Karen: The Court. Or would it be legislation at this point?

Barack Obama: You know, maybe I’m showing my bias here as a legislator as well as a law professor, but I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. You know, the institution just isn’t structured that way.

You just look at very rare examples during the desegregation era the court was willing to for example order, you know, changes that cost money to a local school district. The court was very uncomfortable with it. It was very hard to manage, it was hard to figure out. You start getting into all sorts of separation of powers issues, you know, in terms of the court monitoring or engaging in a process that essentially is administrative and takes a lot of time. You know, the court’s just not very good at it and politically it’s very hard to legitimize opinions from the court in that regard.

So I think that although you can craft theoretical justifications for it legally, you know, I think any three of us sitting here could come up with a rationale for bringing about economic change through the courts, I think that as a practical matter our institutions are just poorly equipped to do it.

It would take a breathtaking display of intellectual dishonesty for someone to call this radio interview evidence of Barack Obama’s desire to use the Supreme Court for income redistribution. And that’s where we cue the entrance of the Tea Party Nation.

The Tea Party Nation plunges headlong into opposition to Elena Kagan’s nomination on the same day as her nomination without marshalling a single fact about her life or work. In an attempt to whip its rank and file into action, it misquotes a nine-year-old radio interview by Barack Obama, declaring him to be in favor of exactly the opposite of what he says. These are not the actions of an organization that derives its positions from the combination of principle and fact. They are the actions of an organization that decides upon its positions first and is willing to work without fact or manufacture false facts outright in order to support those positions.

It’s time to stage a walkout from the Tea Party Nation’s theater of the absurd. We were told we’d get a live performance, but TPN has been caught in the middle of a lip synch. Who recorded the original?