HIT AND MISS

Supreme Court Pleases, Displeases In Three Key Rulings

The U.S. Supreme Court issued rulings in three important cases on Thursday,
one involving school vouchers, one involving student drug searches and one
involving what judicial candidates can and cannot say.

They clearly made the right decision on one case, but we're less
enthusiastic about the other two.

The ruling the justices are to be commended for concerns candidates for
state judicial offices. In this ruling, the justices said that states
overreached when telling those candidates what they could and could not say
when running for office.

This has been a very real problem in Texas, where voters cast ballots in
all state and local judicial races, because Texas rules have forbidden
candidates from discussing almost anything about issues that might wind up
in court or cases that already have wound up in court.

About all you hear from a judicial candidate on the hustings is his or her
name, rank and serial number. That's certainly not enough for anyone to
form an opinion about what kind of a judge the candidate might make.

This ruling should make it clear that candidates can talk freely about how
they would approach specific issues and what kind of reasoning they'd use
to interpret the law.

The more information voters can have about candidates running for public
office the better, so this ruling is a blow for more open government and
strengthens the First Amendment right of free speech for all.

We are less comfortable with the rulings on school vouchers and student
drug testing.

It's an error to argue that the effect of giving people money and a choice
to spend it at private religious schools is not a governmental promotion of
religion. Of course it is. It's the effect that counts, after all.

Regardless, another more practical effect of the ruling is going to be to
throw a lot of states and school districts into chaos. Already, many
states, such as Texas, can't afford to support public education at levels
that would assure excellence, and if money is to be given to parents to use
in private schools, it's likely that public schools will only get worse.

The practical effect in Wichita Falls may be different, or it's to be hoped
that it's different, because of the Choice plan. Under the Choice plan,
children and parents can already pick schools from a smorgasbord of
alternatives provided by the taxpayer, and we have no schools like those
elsewhere that are such utter failures that parents are at wits' end.

The drug ruling is discomfiting because it extends more authority to
schools to meddle in the lives of their students, and the more schools come
to look like prisons the less effective they're going to be in pursuing
their primary purpose, which is educating and socializing young people.

The ruling allows for random drug testing of students involved in
extracurricular activities, and it seems a reasonable decision because,
after all, in many workplaces in America companies reserve the right to do
random drug testing of employees.

Schools that decide to do random drug testing must have strict guidelines
that officials must follow, and parental involvement ought to be required,
as well.