Prove it. Sans evidence this is nothing but an attempt to paint the Supreme Court in a negative light simply for disagreeing with you. The last three decisions of the Supreme court have been absolutely in line with the Constitution. If you don't like it, convince the rest of us to change the Constitution.
I feel like the Supreme Court is finally doing its job holding the legislative and executive branches to their granted authority.
The Supreme Court decided a long time ago that the Constitution said whatever the justices thought it should say. The rest of the government went along with this concept. Overall, I think it's been a positive thing as the House of Representatives, then Senate, and then Presidency sequentially fell into complete discredit.
It puts them in charge of interpreting the constitution, I thought. What a stretch to make them seem like on a whim law makers or tyrannical.
Governments tends to become tyrannical especially as they scale and gain more power. That's what the fabulous constitution was drafted after for the most part: to protect people against the government(s). Not put by Trump or other conservative to exerce more control over people. Here quite the opposite.
I see in this overturn a move to re-establish distance and reduce the over reach of governance, federal legislation here, the supreme court attacking itself. The constitution still somehow works in the U.S, and supreme judges doing a great job at keeping it honored.
The Supreme court isn't though. It's only the final arbiter when congress hasn't explicitly removed that power from them.
This is the supreme court claiming power to itself that it has no right to by the constitution.
The supreme court, according to the article I just cited, is the final arbiter by default, but not by right. Congress can strip that right from them. This is why, for example, the supreme court does not hear military tribunal cases.
Maybury v. Madison is one of the key examples for my position[1], as it is a ruling in which the Supreme Court usurped for itself the power to decide the constitutionality of laws. The constitution doesn't grant them that power.[2] So, no the constitution doesn't vest that authority with the supreme court. Unless I'm mistaken, all the constitution says is that the supreme court shall be the highest court in the land.
Regarding the track record of my argument, I will not disagree, it is not encouraging.
If it were encouraging, I might believe that a just government were possible.
Unfortunately the track record you point out only serves to confirm the theoretical argument that I've been slightly making, which could be:
tl;dr: Power corrupts, and the corrupt seek government power.
[1] It should also be noted that in this ruling ,the Supreme Court also rightly ruled that any law passed that was in violation of the constitution was null and void the moment it was passed, and it did not need the supreme court to rule as such for it to be null and void. Further, they are correct that when two "laws" are in conflict it is right for them to judge which one holds, their key error is in thinking that one of the laws they can decide to very rule is the constitution.
[2] I'm open to quotes from the constitution itself, or the framers that disagree with this perspective, but I'm not likely to debate it much further.
At the end of the day, most people have this perception that the supreme court is "naturally" or "rightfully" the decider of whether things are constitutional or not, and my opponent above seems to think that the documents meaning can change over time. I can't dissuade people of that belief... but I can only point out that if that is the case, the inevitable result is eventually tyranny.
-----
Consider this. How can any law, morally, that is not enumerated in the constitution as a power granted to the federal government, even if passed by the congress unanimously, signed by the president, and upheld by the supreme court as "constitutional"-- be legitimate?
The very existence of these institutions is created by the constitution.
They must rely on the constitution to claim any legitimacy at all.
Thus it matters not, logically, even if all three of them agree to do something, if that something is not authorized by the constitution, its not authorized at all.
I know this is essentially irrelevant because all three have simply chosen to ignore the constitution for the most part.
I just want to address the theoretical argument that the supreme court, or any of the other branches, or all three together, can decide to ignore the constitution and have any legitimacy.
The Supreme Court is mostly fixing its own precedents which are clearly wrong. You have to huff the glue off a bunch of law review book bindings to think that the framers went to all this trouble to create a tripartite government of distinct powers, but that they permitted Congress to create executive agencies that exercise the power of all three branches at once. The fact that we even pretend that’s constitutional is merely the result of the last time the President threatened to pack the Court to achieve political ends. (And no, the power to set the size of the Supreme Court is not meant to be used to “threaten” it to decide cases in particular ways. That’s an insane interpretation of that provision.)
It's weird to see this sort of legal analysis in this day and age. It feels like a relic of the 90s, when the supreme court was still considered somewhat legitimate, vs the political puppets they are today.
The Constitution itself is pretty worthless when it's subject to the whims of a bunch of corrupt asshats. It doesn't really matter what is or isn't constitutional anymore. If any appeal makes it to the court, it's just gonna be a red blue split anyway, and largely ignored or maliciously complied with by agencies leaning the other way. You might as well make it a system based on Facebook likes. That would at least be more democratic and just than what we have today, lol.
More generally, I feel that one of the main reasons the Supreme Court is such a powerful body nowadays, and why cases like this are considered so important, is because Congress has become so ineffectual. We have internalized the idea that the Supreme Court has the last word on every matter before it. But it emphatically does not. The Supreme Court is only the last word on constitutional cases. So many decisions - this one, certain decisions on gerrymandering - are completely overturnable by Congress.
I just have a slightly hard time believing the Supreme Court when it throws up its tidy hands and says, "Well, this is a problem for the legislature", knowing full well that the legislature won't.
Especially what it's done along partisan lines, though it isn't the case with this one. The Supreme Court is dominated by fans of the status quo, who then set the rules to further encourage the status quo.
It's very hard not to read it as "Everything is fine with me, and if it's not fine with you, go get the House and the Senate and the President to agree with you (snicker). Then come back and I'll have a look at it."
I would love to see the Supreme Court actually stand up for the Constitution and strike down this law. It is my opinion that, as of late, they seem to be more pro-government which is very chilling in and of itself.
I think you've helped me identify the crux of the problem: "The Supreme Court" is not doing its job of protecting the Constitutional rights of persons in the US with the vigor necessary to counter (check) the Legislative and Executive branches.
Like it or not, ever since SCOTUS seized the unconstitutional power to overturn legislation, they have been a political entity, effectively legislating.
The difference with recent rulings is that they've abandoned any pretense of political independence or legitimacy.
The problem for you is that the supreme court has the final say on what the constitution means.
So for you to say "Supreme Court is not enforcing the constitution" doesn't make a lot of sense. They get to say what it means, so they are "enforcing" the constitution almost by definition. (this is probably not a great word to use since they rely on other branches, like the executive, to enforce things. They can order stuff to happen, but they have no way to actually make it happen themselves).
You may mean "I don't like the interpretation they've given or i think it's wrong". That's okay too, what you do in that case is very simple: Congress passes a law to overrule the supreme court, or the country pass an amendment to do it.
This has happened numerous times before.
They are in fact, 100% accountable in this regard. They take responsibility for their decisions, and pretty much everything from their ability to hear certain cases to almost every ruling can be overruled by either new laws or amendments.
They happily let that happen, and that is the form of review and accountability you get in our system of government :)
I feel like the Supreme Court is finally doing its job holding the legislative and executive branches to their granted authority.
reply