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Senate Republicans are split on Schiavo decision
Last week, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said federal judges ''thumbed their nose at Congress and the president.'' He warned: ''The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today.''

Still, Republicans - conservatives in particular - increasingly are accusing judges of making political decisions, circumventing legislative decisions and ignoring the public.

On Monday, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, delivered a half-hour Senate floor speech denouncing a Supreme Court decision that limited the death penalty to convicts 18 or older.

He began by suggesting that recent cases of violence against judges may be rooted in their lack of accountability.

''The increasing politicization of the judicial decision-making process at the highest levels of our judiciary has bred a lack of respect for some of the people who wear the robe,'' Cornyn said. ''I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters . . . where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds and builds to the point where some people engage in violence, certainly without any justification.'' ...