Override the Supreme Court?

http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20040522-102507-1868r.htm
Override the Supreme Court?
By Arnold Beichman

Rep. Ron Lewis, Kentucky Republican, has just introduced a bill to allow
congressional override of Supreme Court decisions. Trying to curb the
Supreme Court's power is about as hopeless as the fate of Sisyphus doomed
for eternity to roll up a steep hill a huge stone that tumbles back down
when he reaches the top. Then the whole process starts once more. Will Mr.
Lewis be a modern Sisyphus?
Mr. Lewis' bill is doomed by the cowardice of his congressional
colleagues who talk big about judicial tyranny but do nothing about it even
though the U.S. Constitution gives Congress pre-eminent power over the
court.


There is no need for Mr. Lewis's bill anymore than there is need for a
constitutional amendment once proposed to override decisions of the Supreme
Court and lower courts.
By a simple majority vote in both Houses, Congress under Article III,
Section 2, can curtail the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction. In other
words, Congress could by majority vote tell the court it may not rule, say,
on abortion. This is the language of the Constitution: "The Supreme Court
shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and to fact, with such
exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make." What
could be clearer?
The writers of the Constitution did not intend to give the Supreme Court
or the lower courts the power they have assumed almost from the beginning of
the Republic. The Founding Fathers were concerned about a runaway judiciary.
In fact, in the "Federalist Papers," Alexander Hamilton wrote that the
powers of Congress provide "a complete security [against] the danger of
judiciary encroachments on the legislative authority." Hamilton was
anticipating the Supreme Court might become another legislature with this
difference: its members have life tenure.
Louis D. Brandeis, a liberal justice, in 1924 said the Supreme Court had
converted judicial review into the power of "a super-legislature."
Here is a list of other congressional powers over the Supreme Court as
enacted by the Founding Fathers:
(1) Congress decides on the appropriation for the judicial branch,
including salaries. If Congress says no to a requested salary increase,
there is nothing the court can do about it.
(2) The president appoints the justices but they must be confirmed by
the Senate.
(3) Congress has the power to define the jurisdiction of the lower
federal courts because the Constitution grants Congress the right "to ordain
and establish such courts." Nowhere in the Constitution, directly or
implicitly, are federal judges granted the right to manage schools,
hospitals, prisons and other institutions.
(4) The House may impeach and the Senate may try and remove federal
judges right up to the Supreme Court. There is nothing the courts can do
about it because neither the chief executive nor the Supreme Court can
interfere with the impeachment powers of Congress.
(5) Congress is empowered to decide how many Supreme Court justices
there shall be.
The distinguished legal scholar the late Professor Herbert Wechsler has
said, "Congress has the power by enactment of a statute to strike at what it
deems judicial excess." And yet Congress has rarely acted on its undoubted
privilege.
I hope Mr. Lewis will buttonhole his colleagues and ask them why they
have done nothing about judicial excess. Mr. Lewis should ask: "With all
these powers over the courts granted by the Constitution to House and
Senate, why do our 535 representatives sit on their hands?
I have an answer: The U.S. Supreme Court and the lower courts, state and
federal, have gotten away with their power grab because of simple cowardice
on the part of the Congress in exercising its constitutional power over the
Supreme Court.
In this era of judicial supremacy, it is forgotten the Founding Fathers
made Congress - not the president, not the Supreme Court - the ultimate
power. It is no accident that Article I of the Constitution is Congress,
Article II, the presidency and last, Article III, the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court now exercises unrestricted right over its appellate
jurisdiction with the result that legal opinions are, as Justice Antonin
Scalia has said, "rendered not on the basis of what the Constitution
originally meant, but on the basis of what the judges currently thought it
desirable for it to mean."
I wish Mr. Lewis would get his fellow lawmakers to exercise the powers
granted them by the Founding Fathers and the U.S. Constitution over
power-grabbing federal courts.


--
Atheism teaches that there is no God, hence no God-given rights. That
ideology coupled with a system that believed in the superiority of the state
at the expense of the individual was murderously synergistic.

On Tue, 25 May 2004 04:23:18 GMT, "Roger" <rogerfx RemoveThis @hotmail.com> wrote:

>Washington Times = Moonie Bullshit

That notwithstanding, the legislative branch doesn't have a prayer in
'overriding" the USSC in it's interpretation of the constitution.

Congress isn't charged with interpretation of law, only to legislate
law. That law Must be in accordance with doctrine or law already
established.

THe USSC interprets the legislation if it is found to conflict with
established law as an appellate court. Only certain instances do they
have "original jurisdiction"


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