The Blatant Republican Political Power Grab

The more I see of the Terri Schiavo case, the more angry I get with the Republicans in Congress! What does the Rule of Law mean, anyway?

This is the analysis by CBS attorney Andrew Cohen:

QUESTION: First, some context and perspective. How unusual is this scenario, this mix of legal and political agendas, this confrontation between Congress and the courts over the outcome of a single case?

ANSWER: It is so rare that you probably have to go back to the Civil Rights era of the 1950s and 1960s to find a similar situation where there was such a blatant power struggle between the federal government and a state and between politicians and judges. Even the Florida Recount struggle that tainted the presidential election of 2000 did not rise to this level of open combat between the two branches of government. And I say that, and everything else below, acknowledging at the outset that this is a tragic case in which there are, or should be, no winners or losers regardless of the outcome. It is so sad that a private family drama has to play itself out on the most public of stages, with people in critical moments of their lives using and being used by politicians to further one agenda or another.

Congress has literally made a "federal case" out of the Schiavo dispute. It means that Schiavo's parents now have a right to assert essentially the same claims they already have asserted in state court in Florida in a new forum-- federal court-- and applying federal constitutional principles instead of state constitutional principles. It means that the federal trial judge who presides over the case must review all of the facts and law from scratch, without deferring to the legal judgments and factual conclusions the Florida courts have reached after many years of litigation-- and 21 separate, written, published rulings in the case. It means that the federal trial judge may order the tube reinserted into Terri Schiavo almost immediately upon getting the case. It means that Congress has interjected itself into a state law dispute, at the end of that dispute, on the side of one litigant over another.

Does anyone really think that after 15 years in a persistent vegetative state, there is anything that can be done to help Terry Schiavo? And even assuming that there was, does anyone think that the courts or congress are capable of providing that help? According to NPR radio the other morning, 85% of all deaths in a hospital now occur when the medical people determine nothing else can be done and turn off the machines.

This case has been lawyered to death and beyond. Twenty-one decisions and everyone has come to the same conclusion. Regarding Terri Schiavo, the house may be standing but there is NO ONE HOME! But her parents don't like that decision, and a bunch of power-hungry politicians seem to think that they can buy votes by refusing to accept the finality of the legal decisions.

The decision on Terri Schiavo's feeding tube is properly a state decision, not a federal one. The facts and the law are clear, and Florida law has been applied. Twenty-one times.

For Congress to step in and pass a law specifically to take the issue to federal court for Terri Schiavo only is simply not following the Rule of Law. The decision by Congress and the anticipated decision by Bush to sign it is arbitrary and capricious.

Don't like it? OK. Go pray for Terri and for her whole family. But don't throw away the rule of law over this.