here is nothing in the Constitution that confers this power upon the only unelected branch of government. But it is equally true that many of the Constitution’s framers and original proponents intended or at least believed the court would enjoy that prerogative. If context matters — and liberals normally insist that it does — the court is the frontline arbiter of what is, and isn’t, constitutional.
But that doesn’t make the court more powerful than the executive and legislative branches. Acting in concert, the president and Congress may shape both the size and purview of the court. They can declare individual legislative measures or entire topics beyond their scope of review. It’s happened before, notably in 1868, when Congress passed legislation stripping the Supreme Court of its jurisdiction over cases related to federal writs of habeas corpus. In the majority decision, Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase acknowledged that the court’s jurisdiction was subject to congressional limitation. Subsequent justices, over the past century, have acknowledged the same.
That’s the brilliance of checks and balances. In the same way that Congress or the Supreme Court can rein in a renegade president, as was the case during Watergate, the president and Congress can place checks on an otherwise unconstrained court, if they believe the justices have exceeded their mandate.
Last edit: 04 Jul 2022 18:24 by MyMountainTown. Reason: Removed excess quoted article per Fair Use Guidelines
Good luck with radically changing the power of the courts when the Senate is so evenly split, especially after centuries of the courts having this precedent. I can't see the octogenarian senators remolding the court especially when the federal government is a tripod of legislature, executive and judicial.
The article quoted above is a nothing more that a verbose wish list.
And conveniently, it is written now that the Supreme Court is conservative. The Left loved having a liberal court system for the past half decade.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
