Barry, I agree that constitutional issues and the importance of Supreme Court nominations should get more coverage during this Presidential campaign. I would like to see this issue discussed at the debate tonight even if Tom Brokaw does not bring it up. The next president will be in a position to potentially choose several Supreme Court Justices, and many believe that Roe v. Wade could hang in the balance.

I see no problem with asking the nominees to name “potential” nominees to the Supreme Court tonight. The two candidates have already talked in general terms about the kind of Justice they would nominate for the Court. For example, “McCain has said repeatedly he would nominate justices in the mold of President Bush’s appointees, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, ‘who have a proven record of strict interpretation of the Constitution.’ Among his most crowd-pleasing lines with GOP primary audiences was, ‘One of our greatest problems in America today is justices that legislate from the bench, activist judges.'”

By contrast, “Obama has held up as his model Earl Warren, the chief justice who steered a fractured court to the unanimous decision in 1954 that outlawed segregated schools. Warren also presided over an era of the court’s expansion of protection of civil liberties and civil rights in numerous other areas. ‘Part of the role of the courts,’ Obama has said, ‘is going to protect people who may be vulnerable in the political process, the outsider, the minority, those who are vulnerable, those who don’t have a lot of clout.’ He has also said that he ‘would not appoint somebody who doesn’t believe in the right to privacy,’ the legal doctrine that is the foundation of Roe v. Wade.”

The next President will likely shape the course of the Supreme Court which, in turn, will impact the ability of the government to take reasonable steps to protect our national security, restrict abortions, and acknowledge our religious heritage in the public square. These are critical issues that the candidates should weigh in on tonight.