Meese Says Justices Heed Policy Instead of Principle

Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III sharply criticized recent Supreme Court decisions today, accusing the justices of being guided more by “policy choices” than by “constitutional principle.”

In a speech to the American Bar Assn., Meese singled out the high court’s recent rulings affirming a strict separation of church and state.

He said the court’s adherence to “strict neutrality (between state and church) would have struck the founding generation as somewhat bizarre.”

Meese said, “It seems fair to conclude that far too many of the court’s opinions were, on the whole, more policy choices than articulations of constitutional principle.”

The court’s voting blocs “reveal a greater allegiance to what the court thinks constitutes sound public policy than a deference to what the Constitution . . . may demand,” Meese said.

He said the result has been ad-hoc decisions lacking “a coherent jurisprudential stance.”

In major decisions, the court barred states and the federal government from paying public school teachers to teach classes in parochial schools, and prohibited state-sponsored moments of silent prayer.

Meese said the Reagan Administration will continue to press the court to stick to the Constitution closely. He described the Administration’s goal as a “jurisprudence of original intention.”

Meese said, “By seeking to judge policies in light of principles, rather than remold principles in light of policies, the court could avoid both the charge of incoherence and the charge of being either too conservative or too liberal.”