1994—In the face of her manifestly terrible record, the Senate, by a vote of 61 to 37, confirms President Clinton’s nomination of Florida chief justice Rosemary Barkett (recognize the name yet?) to the Eleventh Circuit. Barkett wins high praise from Senate Democrats—for example, Teddy Kennedy labels her an “outstanding jurist”—and Robert Byrd is the only Democrat to vote against her.
1999—By a vote of 4 to 3, the Ohio Supreme Court (in Johnson v. BP Chemicals) rules that the state workers’ compensation law violates a state constitutional provision supposedly requiring that laws “further the ‘comfort, health, safety, and general welfare of all employees.’” But as Justice Deborah L. Cook, in dissent, points out, the constitutional provision, which was adopted in response to claims that the legislature did not have authority to legislate minimum wages, provides only that “[l]aws may be passed fixing and regulating the hours of labor, establishing a minimum wage, and providing for the comfort, health, safety, or general welfare of all employees.” Cook nicely summarizes the broader problem with judicial activism: “When judges declare governmental actions unconstitutional based upon a personal distaste for the policies adopted through the legislative process, we cease to be governed by democracy.”