Every Supreme Court nominee who has referred to a precedent as “settled” has not only meant the same thing but has even defined it during their hearings. A precedent is settled because it is a precedent—that’s it, nothing more. Calling a precedent “settled” means only that it exists and says absolutely nothing about whether it could, or should, be unsettled. In Justice Samuel Alito’s January 2006 hearing, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) asked if
Roe v. Wade “is the settled law of the land.” Alito responded that “settled” did not mean “it can’t be re-examined.” Instead, “settled” means that
Roe is “a precedent that is entitled to respect as
stare decisis.”
In her July 2009
hearing, Justice Sonia Sotomayor explained that “[a]ll precedents of the Supreme Court I consider settled law subject to the deference [which the] doctrine of stare decisis would counsel.” She gave the identical response about whether several individual precedents were settled: “That is the precedent of the Court, so it is settled law.” Asked about
Casey in particular, Sotomayor repeated that it “is the precedent of the Court and settled in terms of the holding of the Court.”
Justice Elena Kagan followed the same script during her July 2010
hearing.
District of Columbia v. Heller and
McDonald v. Chicago, holding that gun bans violated the Second Amendment, are, Kagan said, “settled law” and are “entitled to all the respect of binding precedent.” She put in the same “settled” category precedents such as
Citizens United v. FEC, holding that restrictions on election-related expression violated the First Amendment;
Gonzalez v. Carhart, finding the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act constitutional; and
United States v. Lopez and
United States v. Morrison, which held that two federal statutes exceeded Congress’ authority to regulate interstate commerce. Kagan explained to Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) that she did not distinguish between “precedent” and “settled law.” She was crystal clear: “What I mean to say when I use those phrases is, these are decisions of the court.”
like the bill of rights to make the sale. The constitution was and is a con job. Does that mean that I don't believe in rights? Absolutely not. I believe in many more rights and ethics than the con job constitution mentions.
