Posted on 07/26/2007 7:02:35 AM PDT by milwguy
Edited on 07/26/2007 7:27:16 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
WHEN a majority of Supreme Court justices adopt a manifestly ideological agenda, it plunges the court into the vortex of American politics. If the Roberts court has entered voluntarily what Justice Felix Frankfurter once called the “political thicket,” it may require a political solution to set it straight.
The framers of the Constitution did not envisage the Supreme Court as arbiter of all national issues. As Chief Justice John Marshall made clear in Marbury v. Madison, the court’s authority extends only to legal issues.
When the court overreaches, the Constitution provides checks and balances. In 1805, after persistent political activity by Justice Samuel Chase, Congress responded with its power of impeachment. Chase was acquitted, but never again did he step across the line to mingle law and politics. After the Civil War, when a Republican Congress feared the court might tamper with Reconstruction in the South, it removed those questions from the court’s appellate jurisdiction.
But the method most frequently employed to bring the court to heel has been increasing or decreasing its membership. The size of the Supreme Court is not fixed by the Constitution. It is determined by Congress.
I don’t care how many Supreme Court Justices we have, the Democrats will not have the say in every justice picked. In the last forty or so years we have had about the same number of Democratic and Republican Presidents (at least in years) so if they think they can chose 100 percent of the justices, they are sadly mistaken. We are a divided country which is one of the reason that we have a divided Court.
The conclusion I come to is that the United States is no longer a viable country, and needs to be split up. Trying to maintain the status quo much longer is going to lead to a civil war.
Have any Dem legislators actually come out in support of this (as implied in the title to the thread) or is it just the inane ramblings of some commie NYT writer?
This is another liberal pipe dream.
Shocking. If you can’t win by the rules, change them. From Gore’s recounts, to their historical roots in FDR’s court games, these animals never change.
FDR (nearest thing to a dictator we ever had, except perhaps Lincoln) tried that, and failed.
If FDR couldn’t do this, todays Democrats don’t stand a chance.
If FDR couldn’t do this, todays Democrats don’t stand a chance.
We have to make sure this doesn’t happen. Keep the powder dry!
If FDR couldn’t do this, todays Democrats don’t stand a chance.
We have to make sure this doesn’t happen. Keep the powder dry!
If you need a reason to vote in '08, you have one.
Opposition to partial-birth abortion is a popular value that the new court has supported. But it seems that the Democrats were the ones thumbing their nose.
The problem is that all the liberals are moving to conservative areas and ruining them!
We need a fence...around California!
Yep.
Personally, I’d rather keep the court the same size, but make it one twenty year term, not a lifetime appointment.
We forget when the Founders came up with that idea the life expectancy rate was a couple of decades short of what it is today.
And Thurgood Marshall’s muttering about soap opera’s compelling nature serves as a warning....just my opinion.
The writer's arrogance shines through: He seems to think he gets to say what are "popular values."
What’s good for the Rats should be good for the Repubs.
We could wind up with 100 Justices.
The Dems are outrageous and highly innovative. They can think outside the box about new ways to upset the Republican applecart.
Unfortunately, the Repubs seem all too often like dumb deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming tractor trailer because they can’t think outside the box.
Wasn’t Chase’ first name Salmon, not Samuel? And, by the way, please point me to the law books where emanations and penumbras are discussed prior to Douglas.
What specifically does the NYT have in mind when they accuse the Court of “mingling law and politics”?
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