Court Ruling on States’ Rights

The implications of the Supreme Court decision that now creates protected “state sovereign immunity” are staggering (June 24). Future decisions predicated on this specious precedent could gut the federal Civil Rights Act, federal environmental regulations, age discrimination legislation or, frankly, any federal legislation passed that state governments find not to their liking.

This, then, is the great legacy of the Reagan-Bush years and their Supreme Court appointees; that 140 years after the Civil War seemed to have resolved the issue of states’ rights in favor of the United States, and not a collection of united states, the South actually did win the war.

What is really breathtaking is the hypocrisy of conservative Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. After years of assaulting his liberal colleagues on the bench for not being strict constitutional constructionists, he based his opinion on his belief that states’ sovereign immunity was understood and accepted in 1787 before the Constitution was written, despite the doctrine itself never being mentioned in that document.

REILLY POLLARD

Santa Barbara

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Re “New Conservative Activism Sweeps the Federal Courts,” June 22: This article distinctly shows the lie in “there is no difference between GOP and Democrat candidates.” It is not “the economy, stupid,” it is the judges who determine most how our lives are lived. Regrettably, it also proves the hypocrisy of the Republicans, who only dislike activist judges who don’t share their specific doctrine.

BARRY GREENFIELD

West Hollywood