Supreme scrutiny

The Heritage Foundation hosted a panel discussion this morning taking a look at the recent Supreme Courts term. Featured were Seth Waxman, the former Solicitor General of the United States under former President Clinton, Ronald Rotunda a constitutional treatise author, and Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz. No one case dominated discussion but the issue of preemption and its reference to treatises were dominated by Waxman who believes the issue is “predicated on the supremacy clause.”

Panelists also argued that the Supreme Court left many of the complicated opinions to states and lower courts. “They [The Supreme Court] leaves all the complicated problems to the lower courts, there’s no clear decisions sometimes,” said Rotunda. Rotunda believes that it is Justice Kennedy whose court opinions have left many “ambiguous” wordings that would only cause more problems for the lower courts.

But with the recent decision to overturn the District of Columbia’s gun ban in the case of the District of Columbia vs. Heller, the question of the second amendment was front and center. According to Cruz, the case was fundamental to demonstrating that even in a modern society there is “right to bear arms.” But Cruz added that unlike Heller, most cases were not decided on a 5-4 vote, rather many cases came down to a 6-3 decision thus making this courts term less divided than years past, argued the panel.