This last week has proven one thing. The Supreme Court is broken and needs to be fixed.
How do we fix it?
The Supreme Court effectively gutted the Constitution last week by first ripping up the Tenth Amendment then ripped up the Ninth Amendment.
The Supreme Court is established by the Constitution. Article III of the Constitution sets up not only the Supreme Court but also appoints Judges who shall hold their Offices for terms of Good Behavior. This has always been interpreted as lifetime tenure.
When the Constitution was written, the Courts were the weakest branches of the Federal Government, hence the provision for life time tenure.
In 1803, the Supreme Court engineered a coup when in the case of Madison v. Marbury; the Court gave itself the power to declare laws to be unconstitutional. That power is not given to the Court in the Constitution.
When the Court gave itself the power of judicial review of laws, it began the transformation process that made the Courts the most powerful branch of the three branches.
Over the years, judicial review has grown to be the weapon of choice for the left. If a good conservative law is passed, even by popular referendum, liberal lawyers run to a friendly Federal Judge who issues a restraining order and it becomes years, if ever, that a law goes into effect.
In the Obamacare case, Chief Justice Roberts clearly played politics with the Court’s ruling. Unfortunately this happens far too often and it is now time to do something about it.
We need to have a Constitutional Amendment that provides for the popular election of all Federal Judges. This includes the District Judges, who try cases, the Appellate Circuit Judges and the Supreme Court Justices.
These judges are totally unaccountable to anyone. In theory they can be impeached for bad behavior. The last Federal Judge to face impeachment was Samuel Kent who was indicted for sexual abuse. This is what it takes to get a Federal Judge removed.
A federal judge can be a raging idiot and as long as he or she does not violate the criminal laws, it is all but impossible to have them removed from office.
They are not accountable to the people, nor are they accountable to anyone else.
It is time for this to change.
In the wake of the Obamacare tax decision, we the people need to demand change. We need to demand that a Constitutional Amendment be offered requiring judges to be elected by popular vote every six years. How willing do you think a Federal Judge is going to be to appease his or her buddies at the ACLU when they are going to have to face the voters in a year or two?
This is one change that is a couple of centuries overdue.
This is one change we can definitely hope for.
Permalink Reply by Marcia Wood on Good blog - they've re-written the laws for years and we must put a stop to this...
Permalink Reply by Charles F Nichols on Agreed with one stipulation. All the courts get revamped. No more legal wrangling no more verbal jousting just decide guilt or innocence. With civil matters they should decide which case harms an individual or group the most and rule where the least harm is incurred. Now watch how fast their approval ratings drop!
Permalink Reply by Robert M. Hellen, Sr. on I sure agree with that!
Permalink Reply by Robert H. Woodman on Judson, I disagree. I live in Ohio where we DO have elected judges. I do not see that they are less political or more tightly bound to the Constitution by the fact that they are elected. Most judicial elections are quiet, uneventful things, but elections to the Ohio Supreme Court attract national attention and attract national dollars to determine who gets to be our Supreme Court justices. While I have no problem with corporations domiciled in the State of Ohio having a voice in the election, I have real problems with national money flowing into Ohio to buy influence (and that's what campaign contributions are >90% of the time) with our justices. It's wrong and should not be permitted. The best way, IMHO, to prevent undue outside influence on our Ohio Supreme Court justices is to make them appointed until age 75 or 80 (in Ohio, the age cutoff is 70).
From there, the extrapolation to our overly-politicized, highly Balkanized national political process should be obvious, and it follows that election of Federal judges and Federal Supreme Court justices is not a good idea.
Permalink Reply by Judson Phillips on I practiced law in Tennessee for 24 years where we do elect judges. They do listen to the will of the people.
Permalink Reply by Robert H. Woodman on It seems that we have different experiences with elected judges in our respective states, or at least different perceptions of those experiences. But that's part of the point I was making: electing judges doesn't automatically mean that they will be better or worse than appointed judges, but it does add a degree of politicization that we don't need in our judge-ships and that could certainly, IMHO, hurt our court system.
What about initial appointments followed by retention elections? Would that strike you as a practical compromise to our differing views? Would it also help to have a forced retirementage of 75 or 80 for judges and justices?
Permalink Reply by Ricky Dietz on The "will of the people"?
Are we speaking about the same people that gave us our current senate and president? I'll pass on that one; far too many morons out there voting.
I do agree that we have a serious problem. To take a quote from Scalia, it boggles my mind to continuously see 5-4 decisions come out of the Supreme Court.
Will someone tell me how it can be that the court can interpret the Constitution, Bill of Rights, etc which are written in very simple terms and come away with with a 5-4 decision over and over??
Permalink Reply by JC Patriot on You know the answer already. Integrity and morals once used to uphold the Constitution have been replaced by personal bias and agendas. That past level of honesty and trust is no longer in existence, and the reverence that went with it is no longer deserved.
If the SC gave itself a power that is not given to it in the Constitution, then that power is not valid.
Permalink Reply by Robert Kelly on The balance of the US is not as dominated by Unions, Union money and Union thugs as Ohio. You do have a problem in Ohio that most of the rest of us will not.
Permalink Reply by Edward M. Plitt on And may take a century to pass if at all. Sorry Justin but this is just BS.
Permalink Reply by Virginia Daly on I agree with everything you said about the judges, however, if you open up the Constitution for a change, that gives the left the opportunity to open it up for other things as well. I don't believe we can afford to do that. I would love to throw them out as well, but I feel it is too dangerous. The 6 year term limit does not prevent the Senate from acting in the manner they do. They are not accountable to the poeple. They still do what they want.
Permalink Reply by JC Patriot on The left has been ignoring the Constitution, so changes are not really relevant to them.
If the court no longer follows the original intent of the Constitution, as illustrated by frequent 5-4 decisions, isn't it more dangerous to maintain the status quo and allow further damage to the Constitution and individual freedom?
Fear should not be the moral compass we use to make such decisions.
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