"Loyal Subjects in a Judicial Theocracy"
Ann Coulter does it again:
The sickness of what liberals have done to America is that so many citizens – even conservative citizens – seem to believe the job of a Supreme Court justice entails nothing more than “voting” on public-policy issues. The White House considers it relevant to tell us Miers’ religious beliefs, her hobbies, her hopes and dreams. She’s a good bowler! A stickler for detail! Great dancer! Makes her own clothes!
That’s nice for her, but what we’re really in the market for is a constitutional scholar who can forcefully say, “No – that’s not my job.”
We’ve been waiting 30 years to end the lunacy of nine demigods on the Supreme Court deciding every burning social issue of the day for us, loyal subjects in a judicial theocracy. We don’t want someone who will decide those issues for us – but decide them “our” way. If we did, a White House bureaucrat with good horse sense might be just the ticket.
Admittedly, there isn’t much that’s more important than ending the abortion holocaust in America. (Abortionist casualties: 7; Unborn casualties 30 million.) But there is one thing. That is democracy.
Democracy sometimes leads to silly laws such as the one that prohibited married couples from buying contraception in Connecticut. But allowing Americans to vote has never led to creches being torn down across America. It’s never led to prayer being purged from every public school in the nation. It’s never led to gay marriage. It’s never led to returning slaves who had escaped to free states to their slavemasters. And it’s never led to 30 million dead babies.
We’ve gone from a representative democracy to a monarchy, and the most appalling thing is – even conservatives just hope like the dickens the next king is a good one.
Wow, I never thought of the Supreme Court that way. They really have had many negative effects on our coutry over the last 50 years, even. It’s amazing how much power they really do have- and that it goes unquestioned. It’s the one branch of federal government that is never “checked” by any other. I know it was designed that way, but it seems, like Ann mentioned, very undemocratic. And I don’t think they have done a very good job, either.
The Supreme Court literally gave itself immense power in the first 50 years or so of our nation. For instance, the entire idea of “judicial review” — where the Supreme Court can simply invalidate a law by calling it unconstitutional — is nowhere to be found in the constitution. They made it up. The framers of the constitution purposely didn’t give the court that power, because they didn’t want to give unaccountable judges veto power over the democratic process. But we’re at the point now where any controversial law goes straight to the courts after passage — even laws that in no way are discussed in the constitution. This was not how it was designed to work.
The flawed Supreme Court process has already led us into one war — the civil war was a direct result of the Supreme Court nullifying legislative compromises between the southern and northern states. I don’t necessarily think we’ll end up in civil war again, but I think the political polarization of our society — much like the one that led up to the civil war — is a direct result of of the courts subverting the democratic process.
There are no easy solutions. The only check we have over the Supreme Court is constitutional amendments, which are difficult and cumbersome to pass. In the case of Kelo, where the ruling was obviously contrary to the meaning of the consitution (taking land through emminent domain, and giving it to a private developer, is in no way “public use”), it wouldn’t make sense to pass another amendment to clarify a phrase in an earlier amendment that is already pretty clear and restrictive.
Supreme Court justices (like all judges) can be impeached, and in fact I think some of them should be based on the Kelo decision alone. But that is also difficult.
The size of the Supreme Court can be set by legislature, so you could double the size and pack the court with judges of a more reserved philosophy. FDR threatened to do this when the court kept striking down his New Deal legislation (which was actually unconstitutional, but the commerce clause is another discussion) until they capitulated and let it pass.
I think we need to add a new check — my best idea thus far is to allow a majority of the state legislatures to stay any Supreme Court decision. The federal government only has its power because it is vested in it by the states — we should reflect that politically by giving the states the “last word”, just as the states choose the president, senators, and pass amendments, we could have the states have some level of oversight over the courts.
Actually, another “solution” that I’ve seen was proposed by Zell Miller, is to repeal the 17th amendment, which required that senators be elected popularly in their states. Originally, senators were elected by the state legislatures, and were designed to represent the state governments, not the people (who are represented by the house of representatives). This means that the states have no direct control over, say, who gets appointed to the Supreme Court. Of course, the state legislatures also originally elected the electors who vote in the electoral college, so the state legislatures also originally had direct control over the presidency, and indirectly, even who would be nominated to the Supreme Court.