ARTICLES
October 1998 ARTICLESLETTERS
Contents © 1998
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
One of the Real Issues
WILSON APPOINTEE UP FOR CONFIRMATION
By Karl Brauer
"It's a palpable evil--I'm not being hyperbolic!" said Brian Johnston, Western Regional Director of the California Pro-Life Council. "What Ron George did was a demonstrable abuse of power and a violation of justice." Johnston said he has tried to rouse pro-lifers to actively oppose the reconfirmation of California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ron George, but, so far, has had little success. "I can't get even pro-lifers to care about him," said a frustrated Johnston. "What's going on? Where are people's priorities? He's on the ballot [in November] and people are sleeping through this."
According to California law, justices must face a confirmation election every 12 years, or during the first general election after their appointment. Having served as an associate justice of the California Supreme since 1991, Ron George was appointed chief justice in 1996 by Governor Pete Wilson. This November's election will be the first general election since George's appointment.
What has Brian Johnston so worked up about Chief Justice George was George's comments on and ruling to overturn California's law requiring parental consent for a minor who wants an abortion. The California legislature in 1987 passed this law that would require the consent of one parent, or a judicial order to bypass parental consent, before a minor could receive an abortion. The law passed with a majority of 25-11 in the Senate and 46-28 in the Assembly.
The parental consent law was no sooner passed than it was opposed in the courts by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Civil Liberties Union and pro-abortion organizations. Through their efforts, the courts blocked the enforcement of the law for nine years. Finally, on April 4, 1997, in a case known as American Academy of Pediatrics v. Lungren, in a 4-3 decision the California Supreme Court upheld the parental consent law. Justice Stanley Mosk, a Governor Pat Brown appointee (1964), wrote the majority opinion. Chief Justice Ron George and Justice Kathryn Werdegar dissented.
Soon after this decision in favor of parental consent, two of the four justices who voted on the pro-life side retired. Governor Wilson replaced them with Justices Ming Chin and Janice Rogers. Less than two months after the decision on parental consent, on May 22, the newly constituted California Supreme Court voted to rehear American Academy of Pediatrics v. Lungren.
On August 5, 1997, the court voted, 4-3, to overturn the previous court's April 4 decision, and declared the state parental consent law unconstitutional. In the majority were Chief Justice Ron George, and Justices Kathryn Werdegar, Ming Chin, and Joyce Kennard; in the minority were Justices Stanley Mosk, Marvin Baxter and Janice Brown. Chief Justice George wrote in an opinion shared by Justices Werdegar and Chin that the parental consent law could not pass the strict scrutiny required by "the state constitutional privacy clause," and so parental consent "intrudes significantly on a privacy interest that past California decisions have identified as 'clearly among the most intimate and fundamental of all constitutional rights'" (quoting Committee to Defend Reproductive Rights v. Myers, a 1981 abortion funding case.) Justice Janice Brown wrote that for the majority to have reached their conclusion, they must have ignored "the historic limits of the federal Constitution," have rewritten "the privacy provision of the state Constitution," and have abrogated "the constitutional interests of parents in an opinion that cannot survive any level of scrutiny, much less strict scrutiny."
Though George used the power of his office as chief justice to overturn the parental consent law, it is not this act alone that inspires Brian Johnston's opposition to him. "I talk to some people who say, 'look, he decided against parental consent; what's the big idea?' No, that's not the problem," insists Johnston, "I expected him to. What's even worse than this, when he was elevated to be in charge of the highest tribunal of this state, he used that office to overturn the supreme court's decision for political purposes.... The whole premise on which our court system is based is stare decisus--that decisions of the court guide the court--and [George] turns around and destroys those decisions. The rule of law is called into question. Is this a nation of laws or of men? The answer [Ron George] gives is, 'it's of men; I'm going to do whatever I want.'"
Since his appointment to the California Supreme Court in 1991, Ron George has concurred in other decisions unfavorable to pro-life, pro-family, and property rights activists. In Planned Parenthood Shasta-Diablo, Inc., v. Williams, May 26 1994, George was part of a 6-1 majority that upheld an appellate court decision upholding a judge's injunction excluding pro-life demonstrators "from the public sidewalk" in front of an abortion clinic. This decision forced demonstrators to a site across a busy street from the clinic. In Smith v. Fair Employment and Housing Commission, April 9, 1996, George joined in the 4-3 opinion that ruled that a Christian landlady did not have the right, on the basis of her religious beliefs, to refuse to rent her apartment to an unmarried couple. George agreed with the American Civil Liberties Union's contention that religious beliefs held no weight in such matters. George ordered the landlady to pay damages.
Both Chief Justice George and Justice Ming Chin are up for confirmation by voters in November.