Who Made Them Boss By Allen For as long as any of us can remember, the Supreme Court has been the final decision on everything. As a minor anarchist, I ask, why? The power which is given to the Supreme Court is defined in Article 3 of the Constitution. It does not specify how many Supreme Court Justices there should be. It doesn’t say they need to have a big building to meet in. They could meet in Chief Justice Robert’s basement. Article 3, section 2 states, in part, “The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made under their authority”. The problem with the court comes when the court acts in an unconstitutional manner. When they step out of their role as judges and legislate from the bench. When the Supreme Court refuses to decide when the federal government has stepped over the line, they are giving sanction to that action. The Federal government has used the 14<SUP>th</SUP> amendment and the necessary and proper clause to justify the taking over of anything they want. Our own Congress has stated that there are no limits to its powers. The Supreme Court will not stand for the Constitution against the Federal government, since it is part of that government. When the court found that a local government could take one persons property and give it to another, for the purpose of developing it, thereby raising the amount of taxes collectable on it, they stepped on our rights as property owners. When a government has the power to tell you what type of toilet you can have, how much water your shower can flow, we have to say get out of my bathroom. What do we do when the court refuses to uphold the Constitution? The purpose of the Constitution is to limit the federal government to certain areas. The 10<SUP>th</SUP> amendment states; The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. What options are left to us? We have examples of Presidents refusing to abide by the decision of the Court. We find that President Andrew Jackson dealt with the court by ignoring it, at least on one occasion. The case is Worcester v. Georgia. In that case the court decided that the State of Georgia could not force the Cherokee to move since it was the Cherokee Nation. As such, they were a distinct community with self-government within nation of the United States, and only the Federal Government had jurisdiction. In reaction to this President Jackson stated "the decision of the Supreme Court has fell still born, and they find that they cannot coerce Georgia to yield to its mandate." In effect he proved that the court had no power to enforce its rulings. Lincoln even tried to have the Chief Justice Tandy arrested for sedition. My research also finds that during reconstruction, in 1868, the Federal Government enacted a law forbidding the Supreme Court from holding the laws against the South as unconstitutional. The Supreme Court went along with it. If we take the Virginia and Kentucky Resolves, we have the option of nullification. At the time, the belief was that the states could decide if something was unconstitutional and refuse to allow that law to take effect. I have to believe that since they were written by Jefferson and Madison, they might have known what they were talking about. Since some people disagree with the principle of nullification, we are left with the states suing the federal government for overstepping, but that still leaves it up to the court to rule against the fed. The other option is for congress to pass a law allowing whatever the court has overturned. But if the law in question violates the Constitution, it would mean passing an amendment to the Constitution, which takes quite some time. This is why it is so important to get good people on the court in the first place. It has long been the habit that conservative justices retire when a Republican is in office, just as liberal justices only retire when a Democrat is in office. This means that the only time there is a shift in the makeup of the court is when a justice dies in office. Under the Constitution, the Supreme Court was supposed to be above politics; unfortunately we put people on the court, not Gods.
