Reagan Backs Meese in Feud With Courts

President Reagan, backing up Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III in his current feud with the courts, declared today that he will appoint judges who adhere to “judical restraint” and “who understand the dangers of . . . judicial activism.”

Reagan joined Meese in challenging the Supreme Court over the intentions of the Founding Fathers when they established the role of the judiciary in the Constitution.

The President, speaking to a group of U.S. attorneys from around the country, said he intendsto use the remainder of his second term to appoint people to the bench “who understand the danger of short-circuiting the electoral process and disenfranching the people through judicial activism.”

“I want judges of the highest intellectual standing who harbor the deepest regard for the Consitution and its traditions--one of which is judicial restraint,” Reagan told the group.

Founders’ Intentions

Reagan, lending support to recent comments by Meese, said the nation’s founders “never intended, for example, that the courts preempt legislative prerogatives or become vehicles for political action, or social experimentation, or for coercing the populace into adopting anyone’s personal view of utopia.”

Senate Democrats have vowed to give closer scrutiny to the candidates whose names are sent to Capitol Hill, and some have accused the Administration of excluding qualified candidates who fail to give the right answers to an ideological litmus test.