[Maceman]

Leaving Legislative bodies in charge of the Constitution is like leaving wolves in charge of the Hen house. It's a document that lists the sort of laws they are not allowed to pass. The Judicial branch is there to make sure they don't. The answer is to appoint good judges.

Utter rubbish. The practical result of what you say is that every law passed by the legislators and voters is subject to the approval of 5 judges.

Our government is NOT supposed to depend solely on whether we have "good" people in charge. We need protection from tyranny most of all when "good" people are not in charge.

Ultimately, any law is only as good as the society that creates it. And certainly We the People are capable of creating bad laws through our legislature.

But if there has to be an ultimate authority, I would much rather it be the people's representatives than 5 so-called good judges, who in essence can amend the Constitution at will without contradiction.

If the Supreme Court were to rule that the Electoral College is an anachronism that violates the "one man/one vote" principle, based on "evolving international law and opinion," would we just have to accept that? Do you think such a scenario is impossible, given what we have heard from our sitting Supreme Court judges in recent years?

If we are to go to Hell with bad laws, at least let them be the laws made by "We the People" and not "We the Judges."

Personally, I would like to see a Constitional amendment stipulating that any Supreme court ruling can be overturned by a 2/3 vote of both houses of Congress, plus requiring the president's signature.

Such a remedy against judicial tyranny would be the only way to protect us from the capricious rule of non-"good" judges.

We have to have a system of checks and balances. What checks and balances exist now to control an out-of-control judiciary run amok? Answer? None.

And if there is to be an "ultimate" human authority on our laws, certainly what I have proposed, or something very like it, ought to be it.

[goldstategop]

Remember this: judges are accountable to no one. If the matter of constitutional interpretation is left to legislators and the people disagree with their interpretation, the legislators can be voted out of office. There is no way to hold activist judges with a lifetime tenure accountable except through impeachment and that is not a real solution to the problem at hand.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[Borges]

Since the EC is specifically outlined in the Constitution there would be no basis for such a ruling. Our problem is judges making liberal interpretations of the Constitution and finding laws that aren't there...not so much ignoring what is there.

The Amendment you propose would never go through because that would essentially give the Federal Government the power to amend the Constitution without the consent of the States. No way the states would go for it.

[johnb838]

It only takes a majority of both houses and the president to declare an act out of the jurisdiction of the court. The constitution is extraordinarily clear on this. Of course the emanations and penumbras may say something different, not to mention international law.

[tahiti]

We have to have a system of checks and balances."

133 – Constitutional Convention explicitly assumed this power (judicial power) to reside in the judiciary. No one disputed the power of the judiciary to set aside unconstitutional laws passed by states. Nor did anyone question that federal judges would have the same power to set aside unconstitutional legislation from Congress. Federal judges had the inherent power to hold federal laws unconstitutional.

134 - …judicial nullification was included within the original meaning of the “judicial power.” Throughout the duration of the Convention no one disputed the existence of a judicial power to nullify unconstitutional laws.

136 – Without a judiciary, the injunctions of the Constitution may be disobeyed, and the positive regulations neglected or contravened.

137 – James Madison –Asserting the importance of judicial nullification. “If they are incorporated into the constitution, independent tribunals of justice will consider themselves in a peculiar manner the guardians of those rights; they will be an impenetrable bulwark against every assumption of power in the legislative or executive; they will be naturally led to resist every encroachment upon rights expressly stipulated for in the constitution by the declaration of rights.”

139 – In our system, absent a legislative supermajoritarian override of a presidential veto, all three branches must concur before it (a law) is constitutional. Any one branch may scuttle a law because it alone deems it unconstitutional.

No one in Congress rose to object to this assertion of “judicial power.”

"What checks and balances exist now to control an out-of-control judiciary run amok? Answer? None."

Congress is free to correct such judicial interpretations if it wishes.

268 – That it often does not evidences Congress’s all-too-common strategy of passing vaguely worded statutes so that administrative agencies or courts provide the rules of law that Congress would not.

In the event that Congress disagrees with an assessment by the Supreme Court that a particular enactment is either unnecessary or improper, and there is a strong popular support for the statute, Congress has the power to propose a constitutional amendment.