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To: tacticalogic
Why would the Supreme Court have more authority to say when the Legislature/Executive is wrong than the Legislature/Executive has to overrule the Supreme Court? If the Supreme Court is king, then there is no separation of powers. Indeed, what is to prevent a liberal supreme court from making rulings that the Legislature must raise taxes and provide free health care, if they rule that it is a right?

It was a long time after the Constitution's ratification before the Supreme Court decided that it was the final arbiter of constitutionality and Congress/President have failed to rein it in.

Where in the Constitution is such power granted to the Supreme Court? Why would the court make better decisions than the Congress or the President?

385 posted on 10/30/2006 1:21:29 PM PST by SampleMan (Do not dispute the peacefulness of Islam, so as not to send Muslims into violent outrage.)
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To: SampleMan
Why would the court make better decisions than the Congress or the President?

Hopefully they would be more insulated from the corruption and influence of special interest groups and political aspirations.

The USSC got it's first lessons in living document revisionism rammed down their collective throats by FDR and the New Deal Congress.

389 posted on 10/30/2006 1:42:54 PM PST by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: SampleMan
"It was a long time after the Constitution's ratification before the Supreme Court decided that it was the final arbiter of constitutionality and Congress/President have failed to rein it in."

Not really. Unless you consider 14 years to be "a long time".

Marbury v. Madison was decided in 1803. The U.S. Supreme Court has been deciding the constitutionality of Congressional actions for over 200 years now, and that seems to be acceptable to all. Better than having Congress deciding if their own laws are constitutional -- like putting the fox in charge of the hen house.

If the U.S. Supreme Court is overstepping its authority, Congress can simply vote to remove the courts' jurisdiction on that issue. The House did just that on the issue of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance (H. R. 2389):

"no court created by Act of Congress shall have any jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court shall have no appellate jurisdiction, to hear or decide any question pertaining to the interpretation of, or the validity under the Constitution of, the Pledge of Allegiance"

468 posted on 11/02/2006 6:19:55 AM PST by robertpaulsen
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