I see that SCOTUS libjudge Ruth Ginsburg is in hospital again. I’m not going to do what the Left does, and start gleefully death-wishing her, but at the same time we need to be cognizant of the fact that at some point we’re going to need a replacement for the old Trot. But I am heartily sick of judges who appear conservative, but who when appointed to SCOTUS suddenly turn into Ginsburg Lite (e.g. Roberts and Kavanaugh).
So to add to the list of whomever God-Emperor Trump has on his prospect list, allow me to add these thoughts on the qualified candidates.
- I want a fire-breathin’, gun-totin’, huntin’ and fishin’ red-blooded judge who doesn’t care much for modernity.
- I don’t just want him to be a Constitutional constructionist — I want him to think that most Constitutional Amendments with a number greater than 10 should be fair game (especially the fucking 16th and 17th).
- When listening to lawyers debate any People vs. [government] or vice versa cases, I want the first question put to the government’s lawyer to be: “Show me where in the Constitution it says the government can do exactly that.”
- I want his guiding principle to be the question: “What would Jefferson, Adams or Washington think of this situation?” and direct his clerks to find the relevant writings to support the answer.
Feel free to add your proposed litmus tests to the above.
“I want a fire-breathin’, gun-totin’, huntin’ and fishin’ red-blooded judge who doesn’t care much for modernity.”
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No such entity exists, for the “system” starts weeding them out at the college level.
Male judges today act more like women in that everything must have a conversation.
Women judges wear their man boots all the time and the first words out of their mouths is “Off with his nutz!” The entire system needs to crash and burn, and then pushed over the edge with a Cat D9.
Amen to this!
Kim should add the 19th to his list of targets.
It’s been all downhill since then.
It’s too bad that that Judge Isaac Parker (The “Hanging Judge”) has been dead for over a hundred years. In a better world we could recover his DNA and use it to build a little judicial backbone.
17A is small ball. Most states were already electing Senators when this was passed. And if you think Congress is corrupt spend some time hanging around state legislatures.
If you really want to fix things get rid of the 19A and the 26A. And add a new amendment requiring a minimum property level for voting and a test on the Constitution.
“And if you think Congress is corrupt spend some time hanging around state legislatures.”
Well, maybe so, but I believe the point was that when the legislature chose the Senators, they felt that those Senators better represented the state’s (or at least the legislature’s) interests. Would John McCain have lasted as long as he did if he were chose by the state government, rather than the voters? (This is actually not a rhetorical question.)
The point is that if the state legislature appoints a U.S. senator, he serves at the pleasure of the legislature and they can recall him at any time, if they feel he no longer represents the interests or popular sentiment of the electorate.
I know that the Senator would then be a step removed from the electorate — which is precisely the point, so that he could be more deliberative and “disinterested” from the populace, and be more attuned to the needs of his state.
Compare that with how a loose cannon like McCain could sometimes actually vote against Arizona’s interests in favor of his own, or for a decent review from the New York Times.
Now do Ted Cruz or Rand Paul.
There is no such thing as an election here any more; there are various ways that the Socialist-Progressives are finding to pervert the meaning of the word: ballot harvesting, vote-by-mail, busing “voters” from district to district and across state lines, immediate registration just prior to voting. And no one is policing this , only enabling it.
We no longer have a valid voting process in this country.
And overturn Wickard v. Filburn – that bootstrapping abomination allowed Congress to control most everything we do in the way of producing anything, selling anything or using anything.
The Agriculture Adjustment Act of 1938 and its 1941 amendments, established quotas for wheat production. Penalties were imposed if a farmer exceeded the quotas.
The Act was passed under Congress’ Commerce Clause power.
Roscoe Filburn, produced twice as much wheat than the quota allowed. He was fined under the Act.
Filburn challenged the fine in Federal District Court. He claimed that the excess wheat could not be regulated because it was for private consumption (to feed his animals, etc.) and not to sell on the market. He noted that his wheat was never in commerce, and therefore could not effect interstate commerce.
The Federal District Court agreed with Filburn.
The U.S. Supreme Court reversed. It held that Filburn’s excess wheat production for private use meant that he would not go to market to buy wheat for private use. While that impact may be trivial, if thousands of farmers acted like Filburn, then there would be a substantial impact on interstate commerce. Therefore, Congress’ power to regulate is proper here, even though Filburn’s excess wheat production was intrastate and non-commercial.
That’s not how Constitutional law works.
Laws aren’t made by dictators, they’re made by the legislators who are accountable to their constituents and then signed into law by the chief executive, who is likewise accountable to his constituents.
Overturning laws is not something any court should do lightly because when they do, what is happening is that a body that is unelected and unaccountable to the people is overruling the will of the people as expressed through their representatives.
That’s not freedom, it the polar OPPOSITE of freedom. Go all the way back to 1776 and you see that one of the biggest grievances the colonies had against King George III was that he refused to allow the colonial legislatures to pass their own laws. The ability to make laws is one of the most important rights of a free people.
Are there times when the courts should step in and invalidate a law that was passed by the people’s representatives? Absolutely. But it’s not something that should be done easily or capriciously and the burden should be a high one.
That’s not how constitutional law works? On the contrary, that’s EXACTLY how constitutional law works, or at least should work.
The courts should, indeed, overturn laws reluctantly. But the first step toward the evaluation of any law is still “is there constitutional authority to do this?”
If the answer is no, the law is invalid, no matter how many people voted for it, or how many legislators worked for its passage. That’s how constitutions work. That’s the point of the Constitution – to LIMIT the authority of the State. And if the answer is no, courts should not hesitate to strike it down, no matter how popular.
The citation of constitutional authority should be required to be in opening text of every proposed bill in Congress. Exactly that has been proposed, and the left shot it down. No surprise there – legislators (many of them budding tyrants, if they had their way) chafe at the restrictions of the Constitution. Too damn bad.
Freedom does not come from the ability to pass laws as we choose. That is tyranny; the tyranny of the majority, and exactly what the founders feared when they established a system of checks and balances such as the anti-majoritarian representation of the Senate and, yes, the un-elected lifetime appointment of Article III judges.
The constitution is a delegation of specific powers, and only specific powers, to the state by the people, who inherently have them. The Bill of Rights takes that further, expressly limiting government power over several matters (See particularly the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th amendments), and making clear that powers not expressly delegated to the federal government are reserved to the States or the people (10th amendment). Our betters have consistently ignored the 10th amendment, however, and we now have a massively bloated, over reaching administrative state.
The Constitution is first and foremost written as a limitation on the power of the State. It defines what the State may do via that express delegation of powers. That is exactly the point. For governments, left unchecked, will always trend toward tyranny. The greatest threat to liberty is always the State. And despite what we in modernity tend to think, governments do not exist to do our bidding, or to give us free stuff. They exist to protect and guarantee inalienable rights (see the Declaration’s first paragraph). Too often, governments do not protect those rights, but abuse them. See above – governments, left unchecked, trend toward tyranny.
It’s ultimately why we have a 2nd amendment.
Courts should not hesitate to invalidate legislation that steps over the line of constitutional authority; indeed, the problem with our courts is not that they are too anti-majoritarian; it is that historically that they have not been anti-majoritarian enough. And we end up with constitutional disasters like Wickard v. Filburn, which turned the limitation of powers of the federal government on its head.
We have to understand what constitutions are for. It is not to enable overreaching legislation, even when passed by majorities. It is to slap overreaching legislation down. Courts are the enforcement arm of the constitution. And too often they are unwilling to take that step.
The burden is,”is it allowed by the Constitution?” Otherwise we COULD bring back slavery and other morally repugnant laws.
How about a new Amendment to the Constitution abolishing the Income tax on both persons and corporations(which is paid for by persons anyway) and establishing a National Sales Tax. It would alleviate the need for a lot of tax accountants and lawyers. It would be a non-Direct tax in keeping with the original Constitution and it could eliminate a large segment of the IRS. Not to mention that all consumers would be paying it including illegal aliens. Thoughts?
If the 16th could not be repealed in its entirety, I’d even settle for a change of the WWII-era law enabling withholding of taxes from salary. If people had to write a check to the FedGov every month (better yet, each quarter or even annually), you bet they’d be more reluctant to vote for higher taxes.
I vote for annual payments. About a month before election day.
Oh, and if we were going to replace one tax system (income tax) with a sales tax, the income tax would expire on Dec 31, and the sales tax implemented on Jun 1 — the fucking feds would have to make do while people paid the previous year’s taxes before getting the revenue stream from sales tax.
We need true diversity on the Court. So, no candidates from an East Coast Ivy League law school.
Graduates of Harvard and Yale are on Double Secret Probation for at least 50 years.