Power [Supreme Court]

SCOTUSblog ^ | 06/20/2013 | Tom Goldstein

[LonelyCon]

You should decide now what kind of Supreme Court you want. Don’t wait until after the Justices hand down the Term’s major decisions. That will be too late....The Justices are being asked to strike down important federal laws that passed Congress with broad majorities.

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires states and local governments with a history of discrimination to get approval from Washington for all changes to their voting laws and practices, no matter how minor. This historic, foundational piece of civil rights legislation was recently re-enacted almost unanimously. The Court previously upheld it. A ruling now going the other way would be quite “conservative.”

Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (refusing to recognize state same-sex marriages for purposes of federal law) was enacted with broad bipartisan support, including from then-President Bill Clinton. At the time, very few people seriously believed it was unconstitutional. Striking it down would be a “liberal” move.

But here’s the thing. The challengers in the two cases are ideological opposites but have very similar constitutional theories. They say that the laws violate federalism. A state has a basic right to make rules about voting and to decide who among its residents is married. The federal government cannot lightly reject those decisions – or so the arguments in the cases go.

[Perdogg]

[Enterprise]

"This historic, foundational piece of civil rights legislation was recently re-enacted almost unanimously. "

That's because the media would persecute anyone who had the courage to stand against the legislation. It's a sort of silent blackmail.

[holden]

Surely Tom Goldstein doesn’t believe SCOTUS rules based on recently-determined notions in the minds and on the lips of the citizenry! Such determinations’ time limit for effectiveness stop when a SCOTUS ruling gets handed down?

Er...that’s so far from the way things work that it’s truly laughable! Whose interests are served by cultivating such nonsense in young skulls full of mush?

The left is keen on telling young minds what to think, then having those youth shout [us] down, loudly, as if that changed debatable facts. I would hope we’re better than such mean education and behaviors.

HF

[boilerfan]

Its called the Constitution, let’s live by it, OK?

Just because Congress passed it by wide or narrow margins doesn’t make the law pass Constitutional muster.

The 10th amendment is there for a reason, to not have the Federal Government run roughshod over a Sovereign State. Maybe we ought to return to that principle?

[Maelstorm]

I disagree with the premise that the voting rights act and the defense of marriage act are equivalent. DOMA in no way infringes on a State’s ability to define or re-define marriage as they wish where as the ‘voting rights act’ gives the federal government control over how a state conducts elections. These are too entirely different things. One involves solely a federal definition of marriage protecting the spirit of federalism so that states can choose or not choose to redefine marriage without danger of being forced to redefine it by a neighboring state. If anything DOMA represents an expansion of the federalist states rights position. The recent attempt to pass an internet sales tax enabling states to force collection of taxes across state lines represents the opposite anti-federalist position. The idea that one state can force another to abide by its law is what fed into the Civil War. The difference was that slave states were trying to force non slave states to honor their laws concerning escaped slaves. It is true that one should always be careful with judicial activism. The South won at the Supreme Court and lost the war.

[Venturer]

What difference does it make what kind of Supreme Court I want, there is nothing I can do about it.

We can have a Conservative Court and then see it Blackmailed into liberalism.