Its the way its always been, from the start. The supreme court has the final say.. period..
I would disagree with the blanket statement in the form that you make it. From the Marshall Court, we have had the SC determining constitutionality. The broad legislating from the bench is of a more recent, and still growing, trend.
Forrest McDonald points to the public reaction to the activist Taney Court leading up to the Civil War as the breaking point where the SC was thereafter seen as a political animal, just like the other branches and trust was lost. In his analysis, the pre-Civil War climate, leading to the war inself, was locked into place by that activism and the related loss of public trust.
Merely pointing to the constitutionality, implied power, established by Marshall and left by fiat doesn't excuse or make more paletable the growth of bench-legislation like the example today, IMHO.