marymcl: “I didn’t say the Supreme Court was entirely removed from politics, only that it’s supposed to be. I’m just not convinced that the way to avoid activist judges (I think we agree that is the goal here) is to make them campaign for office every few years.”
I didn’t propose that the Supreme Court should hold office by election. Term limits make as much sense for this leg of the stool as it does for the other two legs, and for the same reason.
ScenarioA,
Supreme Court Judges can be just as easily coerced through violence (or threats of violence) as Congressmen and Senators; and since there are only 9, the job would be far simpler from a practical and logistical standpoint.
Congress is the stool leg which comes closest to the people themselves. Why do you suppose the Founding Fathers chose a representative body to create our laws in the first place? The reasoning is self-evident.
Marbury v. Madison established the precedent of Supreme Court Judicial review; i.e.: the power to strike down laws as un-Constitutional, but that power was self-declared. It follows directly from this power that, based on specific case decisions of un-Constitutionality (cases carefully selected by the ACLU), the Supreme Court is now master of our sacred human rights to life, liberty and private property; they have the power to decide away our Bill of Rights. If this is not excessive power, then our discussion breaks down. Excessive Judicial power; like Thomas Jefferson predicted, has become the main source of injustice in American government. American government now owns the right of the individual to his/her private property (pursuit of happiness) in the self-serving quest for property redistribution in return for votes (Marxist class struggle); government which has become the enemy of our unalienable human rights. Freedom of speech, press, assembly and self-defense are up next; and I you must know that the most precious human right of all is the final step in the slow and incremental process of tyranny. I fear the Supreme Court far more than Congress; our Bill of Rights can be stealthily decided away by the former without arousing the notice or opposition of a gullible and uninformed public, but I believe the latter would never have the courage to take on the American people in a frontal assault against our sacred rights.
At the writing of our Constitution Marbury v. Madison had not occurred, and was not anticipated (with the possible exception of Thomas Jefferson). Now that the Supreme Court has accrued sufficient power to destroy our Bill of Rights; it is time (it is far past time) for an amendment which restores the balance in favor of defending our Bill of Rights, i.e.: 2/3 Congressional override (just as it is for Presidential veto override). The amendment should also provide for term limits.
Current events illustrate this argument directly:
Wretchard: “Nicaragua’s Supreme Court issued a ruling (arbitrary law from “We the Judges”) permitting the Marxist Ortega to run for a second term after he and a group of allied mayors petitioned them, overruling a one-term limit in the (Living) constitution.”
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/10/29/another-turn-of-the-wheel/
