“Its quite another to legislate from the bench or “direct” the other branches to establish laws.”
That was always my basic understanding...Legislative created laws, executive reviewed and approved and Judicial arbitrated when necessary. Judicial SHOULD NOT have the ability to create law...it is for interpreting the Constitution, reviewing laws, and deciding cases involving states’ rights.
No?
Freepers need to read Men In Black, by Mark Levin. Pres and Congress has powers to check SCOTUS. Newt is using some of its concepts to check the courts. Dems definitely will freak out and every lawyer in the US (Dem and GOP) will freak because they have been able to tap the courts to abuse the country.
I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve heard of a few cases over the years that really rankled me.
One was back in the 80s, when a judge in MO directed to state to spend hundreds of millions of $$ to make the MO school systems more equal. The $$ was spent, but (in the end) it made no difference. That’s because education is more a matter of attitude than of $$.
Another was when some judge directed a state (HI, I believe) to establish civil unions.
I’m sure there are lots more examples. When judges venture into the legistlative realm, there needs to be a mechanism to tell them to go pound sand. [Bill] Clinton did this when a Federal judge “ordered” him to reinstate a discharged [gay] Academy cadet back in the 90s.
I think the biggest threat to the Constitution is the reliance on precedence. When the USSC rules on a case, it is ruling on the Constitutionality of that specific circumstance, and not necessarily on the idea behind it. But, legislators and justices will take the ruling and hold it as law for the idea as a whole.
So while the Court didnt “legalize” or “de-legalize” an activity directly (just a specific occurrence), they did in effect “legalize” or “de-legalize” the activity, because no one will touch it. And that is how they create laws - everyone is afraid of upsetting precedence.