Today in the News, 2.27.09

“I was troubled by that as incorrect symbolism.” While moderating a panel on Marbury v. Madison yesterday at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., Associate Justice John Paul Stevens stated that he felt Supreme Court justices should take their judicial oaths at the Supreme Court building, rather than at the White House, to show that the Court is a truly independent and co-equal branch of government.

“Only in America.” The Economist looks at America’s system of judicial elections through an international lens, having got wind of Tuesday’s Supreme Court oral argument in Caperton v. Massey Coal.

“Senators, perversely, offered the District a taste of democracy while at the same time not trusting it to run its own affairs.”… “If Americans think they were mistaken on this point, the way to correct the error is a constitutional amendment.” This week’s papers feature heated debate over the Senate’s decision to approve the D.C. voting rights bill with an amendment that effectively strips the District of its right to regulate gun ownership.

“Only in Florida could a business owner be targeted and fined for displaying artwork; and then in protest of the fine, display the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – and then be ticketed for that.” Finally, World Net Daily reports on a storeowner in Clearwater, FL, who is being threatened with fines of $500 a day for covering up his contested mural with a giant sign of the First Amendment.