McCain, Feingold Support 2nd Amendment

They're just two of the 55 Senators who signed an amicus brief on the D.C. gun ban before the Supreme Court.

The Washington Post reports:

"This court should give due deference to the repeated findings over different historical epochs by Congress, a co-equal branch of government, that the amendment guarantees the personal right to possess firearms," their brief contends.

"The District's prohibitions on mere possession by law-abiding persons of handguns in the home and having usable firearms there are unreasonable."

. . .

All Senate Republicans except three -- Virginia's maverick Sen. John W. Warner was one of the missing -- signed on to the brief. Nine Democratic senators -- Virginia's other maverick, Sen. James Webb was among them -- joined the effort. The total was 55 senators and 250 House members, 68 of whom were Democrats.

Webb campaigned in 2006 as a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. Warner said in a statement he stayed out of the case because of respect for home rule.

"While the District of Columbia is not a state, it operates under a framework of laws enacted by the Congress which gives its elected leaders the duty to advocate the positions and interest of its citizens before the federal judiciary," he said.

As neither Sens. Obama nor Clinton signed the brief, NRO's Jim Geraghty sees this as

"One more major contrast between the expected Republican nominee and either of the potential Democratic nominees.."

John McCain wore Alito on his sleeve

Prof. Brainbridge looks into what McCain said about Alito back when it really mattered. Here's John McCain on the Senate floor in Jan 2006:

We all know what the outcome of the vote is going to be . . . The fact that there will probably be a large number of votes on that side of the aisle against Judge Alito doesn’t upset me as much as it saddens me . . . this large vote against this good and decent American . . . because we continue to engage in the kind of partisanship which has even been ratcheted up lately on lobbying reform, when we should be working out a common approach and a common cure for a significant illness that afflicts this body and the Capitol today.

And from former Senate aide and judicial nominations activist Manuel Miranda, we hear this:

Certainly, John McCain is not a culture warrior and yet he has been solidly pro-life in his voting record and firm in his understanding that the issue of abortion should be returned to the States, just as Justice Scalia does . . . Senator McCain would not need on-the-job training on the issue of federal judicial nomination, and he is a meritocrat. He is not likely to nominate a lightweight to the judiciary. . .

Unlike a few Republican senators I know, McCain did not absent himself from four extraordinary Senate floor events on judicial nominations in 2003 that I organized. I was right next to him when he walked into the beginning of the 40 hour Grand Debate.

Senator McCain was a good soldier on judges in 2003 as he was again in forming the Gang of 14 for the Senate leadership in 2005. I would have liked it to end differently, but I appreciate compromise in statecraft.

McCain's Conservative Presidency

John McCain has often noted that Teddy Roosevelt is one of his favorite presidents. But when it comes to executive power, McCain could end up being the William Howard Taft to Bush-Cheney's TR. Daniel Drezner links to this Boston Globe article describing a McCain approach to making the presidency more open and accountable. McCain might be wrong on Constitutional issues such as campaign finance, the line-item veto, and prohibiting flag burning. But a McCain presidency would break from the last two presidencies and work within the law and under the scrutiny of the public. As McCain says ,"anything that makes people pay attention to their government is probably a good idea."

Some fear McCain is too much of a hawk, but of all the candidates, due to his own experience, McCain understands that America cannot have success in a war without the support of the American people. McCain knows the stakes of war as much as anyone, and will not involve our nation in any endeavor without communicating the true scope of the sacrifices that will be necessary. McCain continues to take a lot of flack from Republicans for his "Gang of 14" that allowed most but not all of the conservative judicial nominees to go forward. This bipartisan accord was fundamentally conservative, as it stopped the traditional rules of the Senate from being thrown out the window. The filibuster makes activists moan, for it is one of the aspects of the Senate that keeps the majority party in check and characterizes the body as deliberative. By not exercising the "nuclear option," it will be possible for extreme activitist judges of the Left to be blocked even in the event of Democratic control of both the Senate and the White House. This foresight that McCain showed by holding onto deliberative tradition against the wishes of the "movement" conservatives demonstrates that a McCain presidency will be a conservative one, for McCain recognizes the corrupting influence of power. The anti-Machiavellian crusade McCain has fought against the use of torture is another example of McCain's understanding that what law broken for the sake of efficiency in the moment can have dire consequences for the liberty and security of the future.