Eugene Volokh on the Feeney Amendment

Eugene Volokh, at the VC, posts this op-ed on the Feeney Amendment.

The radical liberal, Renhquist, C.J., had this to say about the Feeney Amendment:

"It is, of course, the prerogative of Congress to determine what to consider in enacting a statute. But it surely improves the legislative process at least to ask the Judiciary its views on such a significant piece of legislation.
* * *
"For side-by-side with the broad authority of Congress to legislate and gather information in this area is the principle that federal judges are not to be removed from office for their judicial acts. The subject matter of the questions Congress may pose about judges' decisions, and whether they target the judicial decisions of individual federal judges, could appear to be an unwarranted and ill-considered effort to intimidate individual judges in the performance of their judicial duties."(1) (emphasis added).

The emphasized material, as anyone who has read much of the Chief's work knows, is VERY strong language.

William H. Rehnquist, 2003 Year-End Report of the Federal Judiciary (January 1, 2004), available here.