{"id":1389,"date":"2004-03-11T14:00:07","date_gmt":"2004-03-11T19:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/1389.html"},"modified":"2004-03-11T14:00:07","modified_gmt":"2004-03-11T19:00:07","slug":"the-attack-on-an-independent-judiciary-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-attack-on-an-independent-judiciary-continues\/","title":{"rendered":"The attack on an independent judiciary continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

For some reason, I never tire of updates on Republicans trying to undermine the independence of the federal judiciary. It’s just fascinating to me how so-called conservatives take such a radical approach to constitutional principles like the separation of powers.<\/p>\n

I’ve already written at some length about the GOP’s penchant for court-stripping<\/a> measures, but now we learn that Rep. Ron Lewis (R-Ky.) wants Congress to have the ability to reverse Supreme Court decisions<\/a> that lawmakers disagree with. Words escape me.<\/p>\n

Tuesday, Lewis unveiled H.R. 3920<\/a>, which he’s decided to call “The Congressional Accountability for Judicial Activism Act.” (It’s not my fault some conservatives are parodies of themselves. I just call it like I see it.)<\/p>\n

Under Lewis’ measure, two-thirds majorities in the House and Senate would be able to overturn court rulings they don’t like, without having to worry about the irritating burdens of amending the Constitution. What prompted Lewis to offer such a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist? What else? Gay rights and church-state separation.<\/p>\n

Specifically, Lewis mentioned “courts in Massachusetts” from being “disconnected from the values of everyday Americans.” He added that the law is necessary to deal with keeping religion in the Pledge of Allegiance.
\n
\nObviously, the law itself is unconstitutional. Congress can’t just pass a law to empower itself to overrule the Supreme Court. No serious person could argue that Lewis’ legislation is anything but an absurd stunt.<\/p>\n

There are, however, far too many lawmakers who seem to believe this idea actually has merit. Indeed, on the day Lewis unveiled his scheme, the bill garnered 11 cosponsors — all far-right Republicans (Coble, Collins, DeMint, Doolittle, Everett, Franks, Goode, Hefle, Kingston, Pitts, and Pombo).<\/p>\n

This is a twist on an old Robert Bork idea, which recommended a constitutional amendment encapsulating Lewis’ idea. This proposal, however, is just a routine federal bill.<\/p>\n

Don’t worry, though, Lewis said he would pursue a constitutional amendment for his idea if this scheme doesn’t work out. I can hardly wait.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For some reason, I never tire of updates on Republicans trying to undermine the independence of the federal judiciary. It’s just fascinating to me how so-called conservatives take such a radical approach to constitutional principles like the separation of powers. I’ve already written at some length about the GOP’s penchant for court-stripping measures, but now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}