HUH? Congress CONTROLS the courts? Doesn't that violate separation of powers? What happened to three branches of government?
For sure they control the lower Federal courts. They can abolish or establish them as they see fit. I'd like them to abolish the ninth circuit. :)
Reread the constitution. Congress IS the ultimate check on the federal courts.
According to Mark Levin, that changed way back in 1803
Well, there needs to be re-balancing of the system. The Constitution is fine. The problem is the way we have operated. Judicial review isn't in the Constitution. It came about in 1803 in Marbury v. Madison. Given that, the Supreme Court and the other courts should be very careful about how they exercise their power. They are not anymore. In fact, I cannot think of any area of life that the court doesn't intervene in or that the court doesn't think it can intervene in.I can tell you that the Framers could never have imagined a court this powerful, and never would have authorized the court to do this sort of thing. The Constitution creates a silhouette when it comes to the judiciary. It is up to Congress to paint the picture. And the idea that this silhouette turns out to be more powerful than the other two branches in almost every respect is absurd.
No. Congress has equal control over the Executive branch as well -- i.e., the power of the purse. The Constitution only calls for a Supreme court and does not even specify how many justices there should be. All of the lower Federal Courts are creations of Congress as are all of the Executive branch agencies. Congress can make more of them if it chooses, or it can abolish them all if it chooses.
Congress is responsible for making the laws, and can so at any time. Judges must obey the law Congress makes. Got it?
For that matter, whatever became of conservative principles? Once upon a time (say, last year or so), we were supposed to be irate because a federal judge had decided to interfere with the actions of a state judge in the Roy Moore/Ten Commandments case. And I hazily recall that we used to deride the liberals for trying to make law and public policy based on their feelings rather than what would be Constitutional or set good precedent.
Apparently now our position is that whomever the television news brings to our attention is entitled to a private Act of Congress. It's a big country. I wonder how many feeding-tube/right-to-die cases there are going on at the moment that we don't happen to be hearing about.