Liberal World Thought from Jean Edward Smith
WHEN a majority of Supreme Court justices adopt a manifestly ideological agenda, it plunges the court into the vortex of American politics. If the Roberts court has entered voluntarily what Justice Felix Frankfurter once called the “political thicket,†it may require a political solution to set it straight.
Because SCOTUS wasn’t ideological when it was dominated by those who lean left. And the Earth is flat!
But the method most frequently employed to bring the court to heel has been increasing or decreasing its membership. The size of the Supreme Court is not fixed by the Constitution. It is determined by Congress.
A hint for Democrats from the NY Times on what their action plan should be.
As the article points out, this has been done by Congresses on both sides in the past. But, the funniest part is that the Times is pushing this method in order to reduce a Court that has added Justices that want to stay out of politics and strictly interpret the Constitution. It is, in fact, Liberals who want to, and do, use the SCOTUS for activism of all shapes and forms.
If the current five-man majority persists in thumbing its nose at popular values, the election of a Democratic president and Congress could provide a corrective. It requires only a majority vote in both houses to add a justice or two. Chief Justice John Roberts and his conservative colleagues might do well to bear in mind that the roll call of presidents who have used this option includes not just Roosevelt but also Adams, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln and Grant.
Popular values sure sounds like a call for judicial activism, eh?
The framers of the Constitution did not envisage the Supreme Court as arbiter of all national issues. As Chief Justice John Marshall made clear in Marbury v. Madison, the court’s authority extends only to legal issues.
While technically correct, and the way it should be, everything and anything can be made a legal issue. Perhaps Jean is forgetting about abortion on demand, which neither appears anywhere in the Constitution, nor is a legal issue, but a moral and political one. It should also not be national, but a State issue. Oh, what a conundrum! They basically have made the point that their most beloved issue should not have been ruled on by the SCOTUS.
