Since I focused on a foible of Minnesota’s Governor Pawlenty in my last post, it seems only fair to point out that our neighboring state to the west apparently has a rather bright Senator in Amy Klobuchar. I was impressed by her ability to quickly counter Senator Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) charge – made during the Kagan confirmation hearings yesterday – that the majority of Americans are very upset that they are less free than they were 30 years ago. (The following transcript of Klobuchar’s response is from the liberal website Think Progress)-
KLOBUCHAR: I was really interested and listening to Senator Coburn. … He was actually asking you, just now, back 30 years ago if you thought that we were more free. … But I was thinking back 30 years ago, was 1980. … And then I was thinking, were we really more free, if you were a woman in 1980? Do you know, solicitor general, how many women were on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1980?
KAGAN: I guess zero.
KLOBUCHAR: That would be correct. There were no women on the Supreme Court. Do you know how many women were sitting up here 30 years ago in 1980?
KAGAN: It was very striking when Senator Feinstein said she was one of two women. I thought, how amazing. So, how many?
KLOBUCHAR: There were no women on the Judiciary Committee until after the Anita Hill hearings in 1991. Do you know how many women were in the United States Senate in 1980, 30 years ago?
KAGAN: I’m stumped again.
KLOBUCHAR: No women were in the United States Senate. There had been women in the senate before, and then in 1981, Senator Kassebaum joined the Senate. So, as I think about that question about if people were more free in 1980, I think it’s all in the eyes of the beholder.
(Klobuchar later corrected herself later to note that Kassebaum was already serving in the Senate at the time, having been sworn in in 1978.)
As I was watching Coburn’s speech on C-SPAN, before Klobuchar spoke I was wondering whether African-Americans would agree that they had lost a significant amount of freedom over the last half century or so, particularly since the passage of civil rights legislation in the 60s. But Klobuchar’s response was better than mine would have been, since a different conservative talking point has been that the freedom of the majority has been diminished by the growing freedom of minorities, as if freedom were a zero-sum game. [To be fair, some conservatives have further argued that the federal government has tilted the playing field in favor of minorities (instead of simply keeping it level for all), but evidence of such favoritism is seldom offered.] Klobuchar may have recognized that no one could plausibly claim that women constitute a minority in this country. Of course, there is room for debate concerning whether more opportunity for women – as indicated by having more of them in positions of power – implies more freedom for women, but I’d be much happier arguing for that position than for its negation.
The bottom line, it seems to me, is that government action can diminish freedom or it can increase freedom (by protecting citizens from restrictions that might be imposed on them by public or private entities). It all depends on the particular government action.
By the way, to get an idea of Senator Coburn’s self-righteous (and fundamentally misguided) views on the sorts of personal religious opinions a Supreme Court Justice should rely upon when deciding cases, see this post over at little green footballs.


