flockofseagulls104 wrote:Where in the Constitution does it proclaim the Supreme Court God on earth, bob? As I understand it, the Congress is a Co-Equal branch of government with the Supreme Court and the Executive. They don't DEFY anyone, bob. I, and millions of other rational people, do not subscribe to your view of how things are supposed to work.
That's the exact ground on which the South defied integration decrees.
Article III, Section 1, invests the Supreme Court (and the inferior courts) with the judicial power of the United States. In particular, that language (as decided during the Jefferson Administration in
Marbury v. Madison) invests the Supreme Court with the power to say what the law is. That is the key innovation that makes us a government of laws, not men. That's why the Nixon Administration ultimately came down -- in many other countries, Nixon would have been able to fight things out to the bitter end. In our country, the Supreme Court's declaration of what the law is was powerful enough to bring down a President, and it wasn't even close. Check out some of the goings on in South America or Africa to see how things could have been.
And that's how the Court damaged itself so badly in
Bush v. Gore -- the reasoning was so weak, on many fronts, that the inference was inescapable that the Court was imposing its preferred political result rather than acting as a neutral arbiter. (For those who may be wondering, I think the Court was correct to find an Equal Protection violation, but that it simply should have sent the case back to the Florida courts to continue the recount process rather than misinterpreting Florida law to bring it to a halt. The practical result would have been the same -- the Florida courts would never have reached a conclusion by the statutory deadline, and the incoming Congress would have accepted Bush's Florida electors on pretty much a party line vote -- but the Court wouldn't have damaged itself in the process.) --Bob
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." Thomas Jefferson