As to what the people think, they’re not really in tune with the legislative branch on this one.

I haven’t read the cases cited by each side, but with that caveat, I thought Judge Tjoflat blew Judge Birch out of the water on the issue of the law’s constitutionality. It appears to me that Congress has the ability to eliminate prudential abstention doctrines — and that the Supreme Court has explicitly recognized Congress’s power to do so.

A popular epithet directed by some members of society, including some members of Congress, toward the judiciary involves the denunciation of “activist judges.” Generally, the definition of an “activist judge” is one who decides the outcome of a controversy before him according to personal conviction, even one sincerely held, as opposed to the dictates of the law as constrained by legal precedent and, ultimately, our Constitution. In resolving the Schiavo controversy it is my judgment that, despite sincere and altruistic motivation, the legislative and executive branches of our government have acted in a manner demonstrably at odds with our Founding Fathers’ blueprint for the governance of a free people – our Constitution.

I understand Birch to be a conservative Bush appointee, if that sort of thing matters to you.