Well it certainly has influence over the sword, commencing with this precedent....
churchillbuff, I've been reading that something like 70% of Americans polled thought it was wrong for the President and the Congress to involve themselves in what was simply a state legal matter.
That Appeals Court judge (Birch???) down in Atlanta stated in no uncertain terms that the Executive and the Legislative were mucking up the "separation of Powers," thereby putting our constitutional rule of law at risk. This is total nonsense! The other half of the "separation of powers" doctrine is the "balance of powers." When a court is totally exceeding (or ignoring as the case may be) its constitutional mandate, the Executive -- as chief law enforcement officer -- and the Legislative -- as the people who write the laws (and therefore have an interest in seeing them faithfully followed) and constitute the courts, have a duty to weigh in and restore the balance.
Judge Birch suggested that the Congress shouldn't meddle with the Judiciary. I wonder if he has a copy of the U.S. Constitution handy. I'd tell him to go look at Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 8, the Powers of Congress:
"To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court...."
All federal courts with the one exception of the Supreme Court are the creatures of the Congress.
Article III vests the judicial power in a supreme Court, stating [Section 1]: "and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." Which just confirms what was said at Article I, Section 8. If Congress tomorrow were to abolish all the federal courts inferor to SCOTUS it would very likely be acting within its constitutional powers.
Americans today do not understand the rule of law which made and makes this country possible -- the U.S. Constitution. It is the only thing that can defend our natural and civil rights against the depredations of tyrants. And most people don't even bother to learn what it says, but then will go all "righteous" on somebody who's supposedly "violating it," on the hearsay of the MSM or interested judges.
Evidently the courts, by their own traditions and actions, see themselves as law givers and enforcers. They usurp that authority by acquiescence of the other branches.
BB, you are right on target. Excellent post. There is no doubt in my mind that a simple reading of the constitution shows that the majority of governmental power was vested in the Congress. Both the Congress and the President were given power to initiate. The courts were given the authority to adjudicate between disputants regarding the things that Congress had legislated. They were not separate but equal branches. The legislative was always intended to be the most active and the branch with the ultimate ability to say 'no' to each of the other 2.