Gingrich says courts should be ignored

Greetings all, it’s another installment of “What the Hell did the Angry Webmaster just say?” In this installment, I’m going to comment on Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich’s recent comment that as President, he would ignore the Supreme Court in certain circumstances.

Newt does have history and precedent on his side. The courts in this country have always had the habit of assuming powers they aren’t entitled to and making some really boneheaded decisions. One of the worst offenders of judicial overreach is the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals, better known as the 9^th Circus. ((Clowns in Black Robes)) They have the distinction of being the most overturned court in the United States.

Now, just what does Speaker of the House “Eye of” Newt Gingrich have in mind? Will he, as president just ignore every decision he disagrees with? Not hardly.

From the LA Times:

“While abolishing judgeships and lower federal courts is a blunt tool and one whose use is warranted only in the most extreme of circumstances … it is one of many possibilities to check and balance the judiciary,” he wrote. “Other constitutional options, including impeachment, are better suited” to check wayward judges. “In very rare circumstances, the executive branch might choose to ignore a court decision,” he wrote.

In my opinion, Gingrich is correct. Since the New Deal, and especially since the Warren Court, judicial activism, primarily of the left wing side, (Although not exclusively), has exploded. Some recent disgraces decisions include:

• The Supreme Court intruding on military operations and the handling of captured prisoners. ((Guantanamo Bay decision))
• Wrecked the San Joaquin Valley farms over a fish. ((San Joaquin River diversions violate species act))
• Gave the government the right to take private property from one person and give it to another private entity under Eminent Domain. ((The Kelo Decision))
• And the grand daddy of them all, Wickard v. Filburn. ((Wickard v. Filburn))

The last case was the one that essentially threw out over 100 years of law and tradition on the use of the Commerce Claus. The final nail in the coffin of the American Dream may be hammered in when the Supreme Court hears the cases on Obamacare and whether or not people can be forced to buy something they don’t want.

Now, Gingrich, for all his faults, (And they are many), is a historian and a scholar. When he talks about stopping judicial overreach either by ignoring the decision or asking Congress to impeach and remove judges, he is on solid historical ground. Abraham Lincoln ignored the Dred Scott decision ((Dred Scott v. Sandford)) as well as Habeas corpus ((Habeas corpus)) during the American Civil War.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt flat out told the courts to stay out of the way when 8 Nazi saboteurs ((Nazi spies come ashore)), ((Operation Pastorius)) were captured in World War II. He basically railroaded them to the gallows. The Supreme Court refused to involve itself in the matter and 6 of the 8 were strung up.

Gingrich doesn’t go into all of the cases I mentioned, but does speak of the Kelo and Dred Scott decisions in a position paper he has written and posted on his web site. ((Bringing the Courts Back under the Constitution (.pdf) )) Gingrich goes into the history of the courts and how they were meant to be the weakest branch of the United States Government. It’s a 54 page document and I’m scanning it as I write this post. I strongly recommend that you download and read it through yourselves. Here are a few of the highlights:

Judicial Supremacy and The Power Grab of the Lawyer Class: The Oligarchy Jefferson Feared

The lawyer class began a grand-scale power grab with the Warren Court in the 1950s. Larry Kramer, dean of Stanford Law School, captures the sudden dramatic shift in the Warren Court’s interpretation of judicial supremacy:

In 1958…all nine Justices signed an extraordinary opinion in Cooper v. Aaron insisting that Marbury [Marbury v. Madison] had “declared the basic principle that the federal judiciary is supreme in the exposition of the law of the Constitution” and that this idea “has ever since been respected by this Court and the Country as a permanent and indispensable feature of our constitutional system.” This was, of course, just bluster and puff. As we have seen, Marbury said no such thing, and judicial supremacy was not cheerfully embraced in the years after Marbury was decided. The Justices in Cooper were not reporting a fact so much as trying to manufacture one…the declaration of judicial interpretive supremacy evoked considerable skepticism at the time. But here is the striking thing: after Cooper v. Aaron, the idea of judicial supremacy seemed gradually, at long last, to find wide public acceptance. (Kramer, Larry, The People Themselves, Oxford University Press: 2004, 221 .(pdf))

Another issue that Gingrich brings up is the courts using foreign legal opinions when judging a case before them.

Diminished American Sovereignty Owing to the Growing Practice of Using Foreign Opinion as the Basis for U.S. Constitutional Interpretation

Former Justice O’Connor, in 1997, argued, “Other legal systems continue to innovate, to experiment, and to find new solutions to the new legal problems that arise each day, from which we can learn and benefit.” Later, in 2002, she further asserted: “There is much to learn from…distinguished jurists [in other places] who have given thought to the same difficult issues we face here.”

Justice O’Connor should have been removed from the Supreme Court when she made that statement. Judges in this country are sworn to uphold the UNITED STATES Constitution, not what passes for a constitution in East Buttfuckistan. Of course, O’Connor wasn’t alone in this thinking, (Or what passes for thinking among the Judicial Overlords)

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, in 2003, stated:

[O]ur “island” or “lone ranger” mentality is beginning to change. Our Justices…are becoming more open to comparative and international law perspectives. Last term may prove a milestone in that regard. New York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse observed on July 1 in her annual roundup of the Court’s decisions: The Court has displayed a [steadily growing] attentiveness to legal developments in the rest of the world and to the Court’s role in keeping the United States in step with them. (Ginsburg, Ruth Bader. “Looking Beyond Our Borders: The Value of a Comparative Perspective in Constitutional Adjucation.” Sherman J. Bellwood Lecture delivered on September 18, 2003 at the University of Idaho)

These are just a few of the examples cited by Newt Gingrich in his White Paper. There are many, many more and I, once again, recommend that you download and read through this document. It’s obvious that Gingrich gave this a lot of thought and didn’t just toss this out willynilly.

Needless to say lawyers on both sides of the political spectrum are up in arms over this.

From the LA Times:

Conservative legal analyst Edward Whelan called Gingrich’s proposal for abolishing judgeships “constitutionally unsound and politically foolish.” The Constitution says judges, once appointed, “shall hold their offices during good behavior.” And while their decisions can be overruled by higher courts, judges have not been threatened with impeachment over their rulings.

Mr. Whelan inadvertently gave Newt and any other president an opening. The opening is “Good Behavior.” When judges start ignoring the constitution and their oaths, then they are not behaving in a good and constitutional manner.

Another idea of Newt Gingrich’s is to have Congress subpoena judges when they come up with one of their off the wall decisions that don’t appear to have any constitutional basis.

From Fox News:

Michael Mukasey and Alberto Gonzales, former attorney generals under President George W. Bush, told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly in an exclusive interview that they were alarmed by Gingrich’s argument that Congress should be allowed to subpoena judges after controversial rulings to “explain their constitutional reasoning” to those who passed the laws.

“The only basis by which Congress can subpoena people is to consider legislation. To subpoena judges to beat them up about their decisions has only — if they are going to say that has to do with legislation they might propose, that’s completely dishonest,” Mukasey said.

“I think we have a great government, a great country because it’s built upon the foundation of the rule of law. And one of the things that makes it great and the rule of law is protected by having a strong independent judiciary,” Gonzales said.

While I don’t endorse Gingrich for President, (I think he would make a very good VP, similar to Dick Cheney and unlike Bozo Biden), he has started saying things that a lot of people would like to discuss. The way that judges have made themselves little judicial emperors is both alarming and incredibly dangerous. Not just for the Republic, but also for these little robed tyrants. If people can’t see getting an honest shake from the court system, or are being ruined by the bad and unconstitutional decisions, they might decide they have nothing left to lose.

When Americans make that decision, people get hurt. We haven’t had a judge assassinated in long time and I don’t want to see it happen again. You don’t see a lot of talk about it, but people have been trying to get at judges in courtroom hearings. In those cases, it’s a heat of the moment thing. However, if we don’t start reining in these robed idiots, 90% of whom don’t have the sense to come in out of the rain, well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.

At least Gingrich has started a topic for debate.

That is all.

~The Angry Webmaster~

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