You’ve almost certainly already read about this elsewhere, but since I’ve been obsessing over the court–stripping issue for months, I figured I should wrap the story up with an exclamation point.
Now that the conservatives have been denied the opportunity to ban gay marriage, Congress’ loony right has decided it’ll pass a law to take away the courts’ ability to even hear cases on the subject.
The House approved a bill yesterday to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction over same-sex marriage cases, despite warnings by opponents that the measure is unconstitutional and would open the floodgates for efforts to prevent judges from ruling on other issues, from gun control to abortion.
With strong backing from the Bush administration, the Marriage Protection Act was adopted 233 to 194. However, the bill is likely to face strong opposition in the Senate, where some Republicans joined with Democrats last week to block a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
I’ll spare you the usual court-stripping rant; if you want background on what this is all about, you can check my previous post on this. Instead, I’ll simply share the remark of one scholar on the subject.
“When legislators rail that ‘unelected judges’ are finding legislative acts unconstitutional, they are attacking the very structure of our democracy,” [Chai Feldblum, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center] wrote.
The AP noted that Republicans were relatively split on the issue.
Some Republican opponents of the legislation also said they wanted to avoid setting a precedent that could used by a Congress controlled by Democrats to satisfy their allies or by lawmakers who wanted to shield future unconstitutional legislation from federal court review.
That’s true, the GOP was not unanimous. And while I really am appreciative of those 17 Republican lawmakers who care about the Constitution they swore to uphold to reject this nonsense, I’d like to emphasize that 92% of the House GOP caucus voted for this garbage. 92% of Republicans in the House believe it is within their authority to simply reshuffle the separation of powers and take away the federal courts’ ability to hear cases. 92% of Republicans in the House believe the notions of an “independent judiciary” and a system of “checks and balances” simply don’t mean anything anymore.
I emphasize this because people should realize that it’s not just a few random nuts who are willing to endorse a radical and unconstitutional agenda. At this point, more than nine in 10 Republican lawmakers will follow DeLay’s lead on this, and that’s genuinely scary.
And just as an aside, now that this lunacy has actually garnered a majority in the House, there’s no telling where the far right, which drives the GOP agenda, may go next.
Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) told reporters [last week] that he plans to use “jurisdiction stripping” measures to achieve other social policy goals as well.
For example, he will push legislation to stop federal courts from hearing lawsuits related to the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Be afraid.