March 24, 2004

Paving the Constitutional road
Posted by Jon Henke

Ah, the eternal federal solution to limitations on power: "let's just assign ourselves more power".

U.S. Representative Ron Lewis (R-KY) today introduced The Congressional Accountability for Judicial Activism Act (H.R. 3920), legislation that would allow Congress, by a 2/3rds vote in each house, to override certain future decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. The bill was drafted in an effort to redress recent cases of activist judicial rulings.
For a guy who seems awfully concerned about extra-Constitutional tampering with our system of government, Representative Lewis certainly is willing to...you know, tamper with our system of government.

(Hat tip to Jamie for the link)

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Comments

What happens if the Supreme Court calls that law unconstitutional? Will Congress then go vote by 2/3 majority to override the Supreme Court?

Seriously, the way to override court decisions is by amending the Constitution. Sure, judicial activism is a bad thing, but this law won't pass Constituional scrutiny.

Posted by: Steverino at March 24, 2004 09:11 AM

"What happens if the Supreme Court calls that law unconstitutional? Will Congress then go vote by 2/3 majority to override the Supreme Court?"

Yes, that is exactly what would happen. I told Jon when I sent him this that, it was the worst peice of legislation I have ever seen. It throws out the window the Seperation of Powers and basically makes the Congress the final authority on any and all bills. Scary.

Jamie

Posted by: Jamie at March 24, 2004 09:32 AM

Such a law is obviously unconstitutional and would never pass, but what if it were framed as an amendment to the constitution and went through the entire ratification process.

Would you feel any differently about it? I would.

I think there has been a dangerous shift of power to the courts, and there is no balance to that power now. It seems to me that if 2/3 of both houses of Congress can agree that a court decision is wrong, and that agreement is signed into law by the President, it would be a fair exercise of 2 branches of government acting as a check on the 3rd branch.

Posted by: Pilsener at March 24, 2004 11:17 AM

The REAL scary part is the abdication or responsibility of Congress to LEGISLATE. This abdication, which IMHO began in the 1940's, has led to SCOTUS picking up the slack by legislating from the bench. It'll change when we get some REAL congressional LEADERS. Congress spends more time pissing away my tax money than actually providing legislation.

Posted by: Jim G. at March 24, 2004 12:21 PM

How is this extra-Constitutional? Article III, Section 2 of the constitution states:

"In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make."

This just appears to be an attempt to codify exactly how Congress could make such an "exception" to the juridiction of the supreme Court. You have to admit, it's also a pretty mild one, in that it requires both a case-by-case consideration of particular decisions (rather than allowing for sweeping prior restraint like "the Court can never consider a case on marriage") and it requires 2/3rds of both houses (meaning Congress would pretty much have to be in almost total agreement on overturning the decisions.

Posted by: Terry at March 27, 2004 12:02 AM