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To me, "jurisdiction over the court" means that Congress can do more than just establish the court. It can also put limits on it by restricting the subjects that the courts have jurisdiction over. Congress can pass new Judiciary Acts that change the nature of the courts if they wish.

I do not mean that Congress polices the Courts, but I do mean that they can change the nature of courts to limit or redistribute subject matter to other courts.

Recall, too, that there are Article I courts and Article III courts and Congress has jurisdiction over both of them.

See this article from the Heritage Foundation's Guide to the Constitution: Inferior Courts

Excerpt:

Some commentaries and judicial opinions have maintained that the Inferior Courts Clause of Article I implies congressional discretion to determine how much of the subject-matter jurisdiction authorized by Article III should actually be vested in federal courts. The Framers, however, specified in the Constitution itself the subject-matter extent of “the judicial Power of the United States” and directed in mandatory language that it “shall be vested” in the national judiciary (to consist of the one “supreme” and whatever “inferior” courts Congress might establish). Indeed, the Framers specifically voted down a succession of proposals that would have empowered Congress to exclude subject matters from the inferior courts; with regard to the “supreme” court, though, they included the Appellate Jurisdiction Clause, so that if Congress did create “inferior” courts, these could be given “final jurisdiction in many cases,” as Madison had urged.
Yet the Necessary and Proper Clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause18) gave Congress a discretion to distribute jurisdiction among whatever courts it established. Barely a week before finalizing the scope of subject-matter jurisdiction, the delegates had approved the Necessary and Proper Clause, which the Committee of Detail had devised, in part, for the very purpose of empowering Congress to organize the judicial branch. It must have been obvious that, if infe-rior tribunals were created at all, this Necessary and Proper Clause would enable Congress to dis-tribute the jurisdiction prescribed by Article III without diminishing the collective competence of the federal judiciary as a whole. It logically follows that Congress may constitute specialized tribunals for admiralty, bankruptcy, claims, tax, or diversity cases, for example, so long as it makes one or another federal tribunal available for each subject matter on the Article III list...
Congress’s power to organize the judicial branch goes beyond constituting inferior courts and distributing the Article III subject-matter jurisdiction. Congress also may designate some courts for trials, others for appeals, and (if it chooses) some for both; it may facilitate, restrict, or preclude appellate review, and prescribe its procedural course; and it may legislate rules of evidence and practice.

-PJ

It can also put limits on it by restricting the subjects that the courts have jurisdiction over.

Agree completely. This is clearly part of the power to 'ordain' a court. They could, for example, decide that all civil cases would be tried in one 'branch' of courts, while all criminal cases could be tried in another.

To get back to the topic of the original posting, though, a lot of that was based on review of the court decisions by Congress, with the possible end of overturning the decisions. That is part of a post-decision review, not part of setting up the courts in the first place, which is what I think the Constitution says Congress can do.

The most important case in Federal law and the jurisdiction of the courts is Marbury v. Madison. In it, the Supreme Court overturned a law of Congress as incompatible with the Constitution. I think this was right, and correct for the Supreme Court to do.

But the critical aspect of that decision is that the Supreme Court said "No" on an act of Congress. They did not dictate a specific answer. To do that (such as the now-defunct Roe v. Wade) is always wrong.

So, setting up the inferior courts including defining what jurisdiction each has is clearly a Constitutional authority granted to Congress. Post-decision review on any court, Supreme or inferior, is not an authority granted to Congress - except in the long-term aspect of not funding the Court, etc.

As far as some of the things the Dhimms want, such as review of Supreme Court Justice tax returns, I always hold that anything that can be done to private citizens can be done to any and all government (at any level) employees. If Congress can review *my* tax return, they should be able to review those of government employees (including all three branches). Make a general law that says all government employees need to publish their tax returns, and the justices will need to comply also (as well as all members of Congress). Limiting it to a specific branch (particularly Judicial or Executive) or even to specific employees within the branch (Supreme Court justices or the President) does fall under the bill of attainder prohibition.