[Congressman Billybob]

This is embargoed until tomorrow but will run then on ChronWatch.com The following day I'll present this as a speech to some movers and shakers who have a chance to propose this to the Congress.

All of the subjects presented here are of obvious strong interest to FReepers, based on active interest in threads on these. I am especially grateful to the FReepers who assembled the information on the "ketchup money" connection to some of the 9/11 families. I put that in the post script to this column.

Let me know what y'all think of this.

John / Billybob

[Tahts-a-dats-ago]

Excellent as always. Your thoughts remind me of someone else:

"Whenever the words of a law will bear two meanings, one of which will give effect to the law, and the other will defeat it, the former must be supposed to have been intended by the Legislature, because they could not intend that meaning, which would defeat their intention, in passing that law; and in a statute, as in a will, the intention of the party is to be sought after." --Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1808. ME 12:110


"On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." --Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823. ME 15:449

"Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction." --Thomas Jefferson to Wilson Nicholas, 1803. ME 10:419

[Jim Noble]

I think it's a start.

If the Constitution is to be amended, the Amendment should fix the problem permanently.

Your proposal is not self-interpreting. In most cases of judicial lawmaking, there is no record of original intent that is probative.

And if the judges ignore what you and I consider to be original intent, who or what can correct them?

I am inclined toward a fixed, non-renewable term for Federal judges and Justices of the USSC, and a supermajority Congressional veto for court decisions that have the effect of changing the law.

[JackOfVA]

It's time for more radical surgery. For a start, Federal judges should receive an initial appointment for 5 years. Thereafter, they should hold office only if they are reconfirmed in that office by a vote of citizens within their district, such vote to be held every five years.

If that doesn't do it, it's time for stronger measures.

I assume you've see the position of the Chief Justice in the UK when Parliament proposed to remove judicial review from the new immigration bill. His answer was that Parliament didn't have the authority to do that, and this in a system that I always thought had Parliament as the supreme authority.

Jack

[foreverfree]

bump

[Congressman Billybob]

Folks, just letting you know that the latest is up, in case you choose to ping it out.

John / Billybob

[Fun Bob]

Personally, I am against amending the constitution in such a way. Don't get me wrong. I am totally against gay marriage. But the fact of the matters are 1) I believe the constitution and amendments if anything should be to limit the powers of the government and I do not want to set a precedent of amending it to limit the people, even if for something I don't believe in 2) I think it will take too great of an expenditure of political capital that.

That being said, the packing of the bench with radical liberal politicized judges that are willing to rule as the party, special interest groups, and foreign nations want them to have left little to no choice in the matter. It is the only tool left to circumvent an activist judiciary waging culture warfare on us. It makes me sick that they have pushed us to this bring.

Never forget, it is not George Bush that is waging the culture war. It is a mayor in a medium California's city and 4 appointed judges in MA who are trying to modify US domestic policy and thousands of years of human tradition.

miserable failure miserable failure miserable failure miserable failure war criminal

[The Mayor]

Bump !

[WillL]

But isn't the real problem the institution of judicial review itself?

When first activist judge -- John Marshall -- fashioned the concept of judicial review from whole cloth, wasn't it inevitable that the judicial branch would eventually reach its current state: an unelected body of elitists reading their capricious notions of justice into our constitutions, both federal and state?

I believe Marbury v. Madison effectively stole the Constitution from the American people. Fast-forward to today, and we see widespread apathy toward the Constitution, simple because the average person views the Consitution as the property of elite lawyers and the judiciary, not of the American people.

I believe the constitutional amendment we truly require is one that will put an end to judicial review.

[blam]

CBB bump.

[expatpat]

It's time for Legislatures to stamp out the Judiciary Branch's infringement on their authority and responsiblity as law-makers, and for the Executive Branches to refuse to act on infringing 'decisions'.

[mhking]

An advance look at Congressman Billybob's latest...

[Fedora]

All provisions of the US Constitution and of the various state constitutions shall be interpreted as meaning what the drafters and ratifiers of those provisions intended, whether in 1789, 1992, or any other time.

This is a good idea. A problem that will be encountered in trying to implement it is that activist judges are drawing from a school of legal philosophy ("legal realism", popularized at Yale by followers of Justice William O. Douglas) which relativizes the historical meaning of legal documents (for some good info on this see David Brock, The Seduction of Hillary Rodham, Chapter 2, which discusses how Hillary was exposed to legal realism at Yale); and to support their position on this in recent years they have drawn from deconstruction, a French theory of literature which similarly tries to strip written documents of any historically-fixed meaning. To counter the tendency towards judicial activism I suspect there will also have to be academic resistance to the legal realism and deconstruction which are used to rationalize the judicial activists' legal philosophy.

[PGalt]

Which is more dangerous: an outlaw who wears a mask and carries a nickel-plated revolver, or an outlaw who wears a black robe and carries a gold-filled pen?

Most criminals never stop until they are incarcerated or killed.

America's mullahs have no qualms about flying their opinions into our Constitution

[hosepipe]

My experience with these issues, I say, issues because I believe there are several issues that are related.. from (homo)sexual freedom to pregnant mother freedom(abortion)...

The bill of rights are guaranteed by God according to our Contitution not our government. Thats what is being attacked and thereby an attack on our society.. Guaranteed by WHAT GOD ? is the question.. The Judeo-Christian God or some other kind of God or Psuedo-God.. It appears this attack is being successful, so far.. Defeat the attackers on this (what God ?)issue and you will defeat them on all the others. Loose to them this (what God?)issue and the other issues will fall too.. The world has a zillion gods and america takeing in immigrants take in their Gods too.. In that sense little wonder america is confused. We only have one word for God but many of the suckers.

It appears to me that the God of the majority is a pagan God that likes homosexuality and murdering babies.. and other nasty things.. Am I a defeatist, no, a realist.. and thats what seems real to me..

[Cboldt]

I'm not keen on a marriage amendment, but your "judical inerpretation amendment" suits me okay. Not that the hijackers in black robes would respect it.

With regard to the links between Tide Foundation and the 9/11 widows, it's my impression that the NYT and other media HAVE been presented with the allegations, but have not reported the connection yet. Your article says certain media outlets do not even have the information (and if they don't then it's perfectly reasonable for them to not report on it).

[expatguy]

"The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what are not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch." -- Thomas Jefferson

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

The hijackers of the constitution and our freedoms are lawyers, period. Lawyers rule this country with an iron fist, almost all judges are lawyers, the state and federal legislatures are predominately lawyers. Lawyers make the laws and then for good measure lawyers as judges interpret the meaning of laws. It is like putting foxes in the hen houses to do the maximum damage, and they have.

The Bard said kill all the lawyers, and he was right.

[upchuck]

CBB I understand denigrating the Founding Fathers by instead calling them the "Framers" is the latest politically correct thing to do. I strongly disagree with this move and am sorry you have succumbed. Please come back from the dark side :)

[lainde]

Terrific!

[R. Scott]

. First, why does a decision by a Massachusetts court present a national problem? That’s due to the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the US Constitution, which requires all states to recognize the official acts of other states. And a marriage certificate from one state is clearly represents an official act, when that couple travels to another state.

Why does this apply to gay marriage and not to concealed handgun permits?