Obama readies campaign against high court

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is laying groundwork to make the majority-conservative Supreme Court a campaign issue this fall, taking a political page from Republicans who have long railed against liberal judges who don't vote their way.

The emerging Democratic strategy to paint the court as extreme was little noted in this week's hubbub over Obama's assertion that overturning his health care law would be "unprecedented." His statement Monday wasn't completely accurate, and the White House backtracked. But Obama was making a political case, not a legal one, and he appears ready to keep making it if the high court's five-member majority strikes down or cuts the heart out of his signature policy initiative.

The court is likely to consider several other issues before the November election that could stir Obama's core Democratic supporters. Among those are immigration, voting rights and a revisit of a campaign finance ruling that Obama has already criticized as an outrage.

"We haven't seen the end of this," said Tom Goldstein, who teaches at Stanford and Harvard universities. "The administration seems to be positioning itself to be able to run against the Supreme Court if it needs to or wants to."

A Republican-appointed federal judge took umbrage at the suggestion that federal courts might be powerless to overturn such laws, and ordered the Justice Department to provide written assurance. He insisted the response be at least three pages, single-spaced.

Attorney General Eric Holder took on that task himself, telling the judge yesterday that "the long-standing, historical position of the United States regarding judicial review of the constitutionality of federal legislation has not changed."

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had his say Thursday: "The president did something that as far as I know is completely unprecedented. He not only tried to publicly pressure the court into deciding a pending case in the way he wants it decided; he also questioned its very authority under the Constitution," he said.