Posted on 09/27/2020 2:18:36 PM PDT by karpov
If you want to know the roots of the country’s present polarization over the Supreme Court, we have to go back. No, not to the contentious hearings for Brett Kavanaugh two years ago, nor to Sen. McConnell’s decision to deny a hearing or confirmation vote to Merrick Garland, who was President Obama’s 2016 pick to replace Justice Scalia. We must go even farther back than the drama of the Clarence Thomas hearing in 1991 or the attacks on Robert Bork’s character in 1987.
The real point of origin is one of the first judicial controversies in the history of the American republic, decided in the landmark 1803 Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison. If you think judicial politics is polarizing and opportunistic now, consider what John Adams and his partisan allies did in the closing days of his one and only presidential term.
After losing the election of 1800, the lame-duck Congress and Adams administration, both controlled by the defeated Federalist Party, enacted a law reducing the size of the Supreme Court, eliminated the justices’ obligation to “ride the circuit,” and created six new judicial circuits, 16 judicial positions and a series of other court-related offices.
The judges nominated by Adams and quickly confirmed by the Federalists were the country’s first true attempt at “court packing,” at least in lower courts. The incoming president, Thomas Jefferson, immediately worked to reverse the new law, in part by refusing to deliver the commissions that would commence the nominees’ terms of service.
William Marbury, a nominee for District of Columbia justice of the peace, did not take kindly to losing his job, and he sued. The precise outcome isn’t that interesting (Marbury lost). The reasoning, however, changed history.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Just like roe v wade. Made up law.
Deciding what laws are “repugnant” to the constitution depends on how one interprets the constitution.
No, the Constitution shouldn’t be “interpreted” but it has and will be by certain SCOTUS justices.
I think the Miranda reading, right to an attorney appointed by the court and desegregation were on the right side of history.
WAY too many from those times weren’t.
Like wholesale abortion.
Who knows if she meant it but the now dead one said in 1992 that she thought Row was breathtaking in its scope in a not so good way.
But did she ever vote with that mindset while SC Justice?
I doubt it.
Probably the first and last full article I will read for weeks now :)
People are supposed to get wiser as they get older.
Medical problems can preclude this.
I had real communist professors while I was in college.
“Everything must support the revolution!”
“Everything must support the party!”
I see this same philosophy in the Democrat Party.
They want everything to support the Democrat Party.
They want the masters of the Democrat Party to automatically be the masters of The United States.
FDR and those since packed the courts with dogmatic progressive ideologues.
The media made sure members of the court were either Democrat progressives or Republican progressives. But, they were progressives in their ideology. Why? Because the media was overwhelmingly made of of progressives. FDR made sure the radio networks (which became the television networks) were packed with progressives when the FCC was created during his first term.
Since Reagan, we have been able to get some orientalists and textualists on the court. We are now approaching a majority.
The Supreme Court is too powerful. Many of its powers need to return to Congress.
I think the Supreme Court should pay attention more to addressing grievances by individuals.
‘Just like roe v wade. Made up law.”
The Supreme Court found a constitutional right to an abortion but no matter how hard they look cannot find a right of the people to keep and bear arms anywhere in the constitution.
it is true that the Supreme Court has way too much power, power that it has usurped from its now inferior federal co-branches and from the states. It’s been okay though because the Left has won its biggest culture war victories via judicial usurpation and activism. As long as that is the case, then the elites are not just fine with judicial supremacy but in fact actively champion it, and tell us that our patriotic and civic duty is to obey the court and consider these matters settled law.
I wonder though if “conservative” David French would care as much if we weren’t on the verge of finally having a majority on the Supreme Court that is mostly conservative. “Mostly” because garbage decisions like the recent one rewriting the definition of sexual discrimination law was a 6-3 betrayal by both Roberts and Gorsuch, so even if Barrett is confirmed and turns out as hoped, we’d still be at least one vote shy of a genuine conservative majority.
Still though, just the prospect of a true conservative majority has led some on the Left to criticize judicial supremacy since Trump was elected. There was an article last week in some liberal publication saying that Congress and the President do not have to obey the Supreme Court. I agree with that actually, but if a Republican President and/or Congress defied the Sup Court it would be proclaimed the end of the rule of law and the descent of the US into banana republic territory.
That’s why if an outright defiance of judicial supremacy in modern times is to happen, then it’ll most likely come from a Democrat President or Congress. The Democrats know they’d have the media on their side, and most of the academic legal experts, so they’d have much more confidence in making such a move.
Yep. This was always a states rights issue since abortion nor private health care are mentioned in the constitution. My friend, if Harris becomes president, she will thousand the constitution out the window.
Thousand = throw
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