Free Republic

Liberals control the legal profession, from the law schools and litigious nonprofits to the bar associations and judges (including many Republican appointees). Judicial supremacy, implemented through “universal injunctions,” allows any liberal legal group to tap one of 670 district judges in 94 district courts to decide on a broad range of public policies, which the political elite then treat as “law.” The good news: Evidence seems to suggest that at least three Supreme Court justices intend to end this irrational practice. We might only have three justices on our side, but governors should still firmly reject overreaching judges who believe...

Americans today are inclined to accept, without thinking much about it, the idea of judicial supremacy. We think that the federal courts—and especially the Supreme Court—have an extensive discretion to decide for us the big questions of public policy that come before the nation. After all, the Supreme Court has taken upon itself the authority to decide whether and to what extent abortion may be regulated, and, more recently, to decide the definition of marriage. Moreover, we think that that court’s decisions on such questions are final, that there is no way the people or their representatives can effectively assert...

Opinions are sometimes right, and sometimes wrong. But they aren't law. In the early days of our government, Supreme Court opinions were so insignificant that Congress didn't bother preserving them. Opinions were left to individuals to keep track of, and were not congressionally-funded into official records until 1874, almost a century after our independence. Before Congress stepped in, Court records were printed and kept under copyright by private citizens and reporters, who sold them for profit. Opinions of the Court were kept "loosey-goosey" for decades, and not preserved with certified integrity. Actual statute was held officially and carefully, in order...

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Federal U.S. District Court Judge Max O. Cogburn Jr. has overturned North Carolina’s ban on same-sex marriage. The case was filed by members of the clergy seeking to marry gay couples. ... Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Thom Tillis issued the following statement following the ban being overturned: While we recognize the tremendous passion on all sides of this issue, we promised to defend the will of North Carolina voters because they – not judges and not politicians – define marriage as between one man and one woman and placed that in our state constitution....

August 3, 2014 (conservativeprofiles.com) -- Two parts of Jonathan Turley's op ed in today's Washington Post illustrate how ingrained the concept of judicial supremacy has become. Here are the quotes: * "... Congress’s exclusive power to impeach does not license it to abuse that power, any more than the Supreme Court’s final say on laws gives it license to deliver arbitrary rulings. The framers carefully defined the grounds for impeachment as 'treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors' — language with British legal precedent. They clearly did not want removal of the president subject to congressional whim. Indeed, they...

Those who oppose judicial supremacy follow in the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln himself. Newt Gingrich’s statements about the judiciary during the December 15, 2011, GOP debate and on Bob Schieffer’s Face the Nation the following weekend ignited a firestorm over his view of American constitutionalism that has been smoldering in the media for several months now. His challenge to judicial supremacy—the idea that the Supreme Court has the last word on the meaning of the Constitution—has been much condemned, particularly because Gingrich’s argument also criticizes the declaration of judicial supremacy in the Court’s 1958 desegregation decision, Cooper v. Aaron. Ian...

As the House prepares for Wednesday's vote to repeal the Democrats' health care law, Republicans say it marks more than a shot at a controversial Obama policy — they argue it is the first step toward making Congress relevant in debates over the Constitution. Following the House GOP's new rules, Majority Leader Eric Cantor submitted along with the repeal bill a little-noticed but far-reaching statement of constitutional authority that casts the effort in terms of reclaiming congressional prerogatives and the duty of each branch of government to police itself and "ensure that all their actions are constitutional." While occasionally cloaked...

SAN FRANCISCO – The federal judge who overturned California's same-sex marriage ban has more bad news for the measure's sponsors: he not only is unwilling to keep gay couples from marrying beyond next Wednesday, he doubts the ban's backers have the right to challenge his ruling. Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker on Thursday rejected a request to delay his decision striking down Proposition 8 from taking effect until high courts can take up an appeal lodged by its supporters. One of the reasons, the judge said, is he's not sure the proponents have the authority to appeal since...

The Marbury MythJohn Marshall’s famous decision does not support judicial supremacy.  ‘We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the Court says it is.” These famous words of future Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes have become a cliché for judicial supremacy — the idea that the Supreme Court is the ultimate, exclusive interpreter of the Constitution, having the final word on all matters pertaining to its meaning. And almost everyone now believes that judicial supremacy is based on Marbury v. Madison, decided by the Court in 1803. Marbury’s contemporary influence has been graphically demonstrated in recent hearings on...

Judicial Supremacy and the ConstitutionWe need to reclaim the Constitution from the Supreme Court.  Many Americans are puzzled and angry about the judicial assault on religion, morality, and common sense that has been going on for the past few decades. People wonder, for example, how the First Amendment (which guarantees freedom of religion as well as separation of church and state) could possibly require the expulsion of religion from public life, or outlaw prayers at high-school football games and graduation ceremonies. To answer questions like these, one must understand how federal judges got the power to make such controversial political...

Imagine that certain investors have set up a business under a charter and by-laws that specifically provide for a number of managers assigned to oversee various separate and independent branches of the company, all of whom must answer ultimately to the investors. One of the managers then announces that: (i) he alone will determine, not only when the other managers are not in compliance with the company's policies, but also what those policies actually are; (ii) the investors will have no say in the making of these determinations; and (iii) if the investors dissent from his unilateral determinations, their only...

Lynn Moses will be locked up in federal prison next Wednesday. His crime? Protecting the city of Driggs, Idaho from flooding. When Mr. Moses began to develop a subdivision along Teton Creek in 1980, Teton County required him to implement an engineer’s plan to modify the Teton Creek stream bed to prevent the flooding of subdivision property, caused by the buildup of gravel bars and downed trees, during high water flows in the spring. In fact, the county would not allow him even to record the plat for the subdivision until the modification work had been done, and only allowed...

Justice Antonin Scalia has weighed in once again to express his opposition to the use of foreign law as a basis for Supreme Court decisions about the U.S. Constitution. At the same time, however, he takes it upon himself to warn Congress against any legislation intended to forbid this practice. His rationale: Congress shouldn't tell the Court how to conduct its affairs, just as the Court shouldn't meddle in the affairs of the legislature. Scalia's recent remarks to a forum on Capitol Hill suggest that thoughtful conservatives must temper their gratitude for his right opinion, with their dismay at his...

In a recent opinion against judicial activism, Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker reproduces a stunningly precient 200-year-old quote from a former Congressman and judge about the dangers of permitting judges to claim the final authority to interpret the Constitution: "Just before Marbury v. Madison was decided (1803), Congressman Joseph Nicholson, a former judge, warned what might happen if a right of judicial review of constitutional questions was permitted to become a doctrine of judicial supremacy: By what authority are the judges to be raised above the law and above the constitution? Where is the charter which places the sovereignty...

The public scorns review of acquittals as an example of judicial disregard for judicial integrity. Laws allowing such review have escaped comment and coverage.

QUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | MEETUP | C-LOG | ISSUES townhall.comPrinter-friendly versionKilling Terri SchiavoThomas Sowell (back to web version) | Send March 24, 2005People who say that the government has no business interfering in a private decision like removing Terri Schiavo's feeding tube somehow have no problem with a squad of policemen preventing her parents (or anyone else) from giving their daughter food or water. Do those who want to keep the government out of private decisions think that the police are not the government? Do they think that the judges who authorized this are not the...

Is anyone aware of any other nation on Earth where judges make the law under the guise of interpreting a national constitution, strike down laws that they don't like, and enjoin the elected officials of government from enforcing laws that are valid and not struck down? I can't think of another nation that has judicial supremacy, not one. What a disgrace that our country has devolved into this. Yes, we ultimately can impeach individual judges, but my point is that the American courts, as a branch of government, have take powers that courts in no other countries have deigned to...