RON PAUL AND MARILYN MUSGRAVE

In my Intro American Gov't class oday we're talking about congressional control over the courts, and I'm going to show them Congressman Ron Paul's (R, TX-14th) website, which has a helpful list of legislation that he has sponsored (accessible through this link). If Representative Paul actually represents majority opinion in that area of Texas, I doubt that I'd feel all that comfortable living there. Take a look at the things he's proposed; they're pretty amazing.

We're also probably going to watch a bit of Rep. Marilyn Musgrave's (R-CO) appearance on C-Span (video should be available here), where she defends this proposed amendment, which reads as follows:

`SECTION 1. Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.'.

She argues that this Amendment would do place control over civil unions at level of state legislatures, rather than "unelected liberal judges." I find it hard to see this as an instance of respect for federalism, however; this proposal rather seems to take the issue of civil unions off the table as an option for state law, and not just in courts. As Sam Heldman argues, Reps are fair-weather friends of federalism, despite their often stirring rhetoric on the subject.

I doubt that this Amendment will pass, but I haven't read any analysis; as Ron Paul shows, lots of Amendments are proposed not because they'll pass but because a legislator wants to signal support for an idea to constituents. In fact, this signalling is often relatively cost-free since the barriers to successful Amendment are so high.

For those concerned about partisan balance, yesterday we watched a section of Russ Feingold's questions to Michael Chertoff as well as sections of C-span's coverage of rallies for and against the nomination of Miguel Estrada.