Controversies About Robert. Bork

Robert H. Bork a former attorney general, federal judge and a conservative legal theorist that 1987 nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States was rejected by the Senate in a historic political struggle whose influence is still felt, died Wednesday in Arlington, Virginia was 85.


The death, complications of heart disease has been confirmed, his son Robert Jr.

Judge Bork, who is a senior adviser to the presidential campaign this year judicial Mitt Romney, play a small but important role in the Watergate crisis as counsel under President Richard M. Nixon. He orders to fire the special prosecutor in the so-called "Saturday Night Massacre." Significant judgments handed down by a federal appeals court bench. But it is a symbol of the country's culture wars by the name of Judge Bork.

It is rare for the "advice and consent" constitutional president of the Senate primary role of the Supreme Court nominee, and rarely still for the refusal must be based not on qualifications but on judicial philosophy and temperament. That turned out to defeat Judge Bork portal into adventure and the name of the verb "borked" is what happens to the nominee refused to consider any political motive supporters.

Success of the campaign of anti-Bork widely seen that the tone and emphasis shifted Supreme Court nomination since then, giving them a powerful political actors often and make it difficult, many argue, strongly held opinion nominee d never confirmed.By the end of his life, Judge Bork argued that the U.S. judge acting liberal elite please, hijackers battle over national values ​​of more than their role, especially in many of the key decisions on civil rights and liberties, personal autonomy and regulation of the business.He's very specific policy implicitly recognizes the right of privacy, the Supreme Court in 1960, and 70 issues, claiming the elimination of abortion or contraception use by married couples in countries of the bars.

This view, to help with their rejection of the court to which minorities, successfully led a coalition of liberals push his Senate loss in no small part by the sense that he cares about more than abstract influenced legal reasoning of the people motivated.