OT: Example of Congressional Stupidity

It sounds to me like balanced power. For years the Courts have been writing laws, not deciding if someone did something un-lawful.

The President can veto Congress, the Congress can override the President. There wasn't a check on the third part of our government.

There is so much crying year after year that this group or that will pack the court. What if it really happened. Congress could check an out of camp court and then they could be impeached.

Martin

Reply to
Martin H. Eastburn
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Remember - the DEMS obstructed justice by not having hearings and such for the appointees. THe court is packed with Dems. Martin

Reply to
Martin H. Eastburn

So that's what Blair and Bush have in common !

Steve

Reply to
Steve

the appointees.

I don't know what court you're referring to, Martin, but it isn't the Supreme Court of the United States. Seven of the nine Justices were appointed by Republican presidents. Only Ginsburg and Breyer were appointed by a Dem.

Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Probably no implications at all. It would have to be a very broad, popular issue to get 2/3 of Congress to agree on anything that usurped a Supreme Court decision.

Marbury v. Madison was a very clever and very ironic decision. The Court assumed the authority to review the constitutionality of federal legislation in that decision. It drove Jefferson right up a wall. But the Court had him cornered. He knew they were right in an important sense: their decision, although presumptive, concerned the limitations of the Court's own power. In effect, the Court said they had the power to decide if a law was constitutional -- and the law on which the case was based was one, the Court said, that had attempted to give powers to the Court that it didn't have under the Constitution. How's that for hoisting Congress on its own petard? d8-)

As for what the Court would do if something like HR3920 were passed, I can't even guess. There's plenty of irony here, too: the Court could pass (probably *would* pass -- someone would challenge it all the way up) on the constitutionality of HR3920 itself. But they could well wind up approving the constitutionality of a law that limited the Court's own powers to be the final aribiter of constitutionality, as long as it didn't interfere with the Court's authority to pass on the constitutionality of laws that limited its own powers.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Funny how folks see the court as 'liberal' when really most of the members are from the conservative camp. This makes me suspect that some folks are just unhappy in general with the separation of power that is written into the constitution.

The alternative is that we have a king who's judgements are not reviewable by any kind of judiciary.

Jim

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Reply to
jim rozen

How many of them are liberals? Simply because a Republican picked a judge, doesnt mean they picked staunch conservatives. Indeed, from what Ive seen, its more likely that a conservative will pick a moderate from either side, than will a liberal.

Gunner

"A vote for Kerry is a de facto vote for bin Laden." Strider

Reply to
Gunner

Bwa haa haaaa haaaaa. Stop fooling around with this stuff, Gunner. That's a howler if ever I saw one.

Jim

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Reply to
jim rozen

You'd have to define the terms and then study the Court's decisions to make that judgment for yourself, Gunner. The Court tends to make a more-than-ordinary number of 5:4 "conservative" decisions, but that's complicated by the fact that at least one of the most hard-boiled "conservatives" also is quite an "activist," and he has a another pet Justice who tends to follow him around.

Most historians of the Court agree that this is a fairly conservative Court, but that it's also a hard one to predict, partly for the same reason that John Ashcroft is hard to predict: the neocon agenda talks state's rights, but comes down hard on the side of federal authority, on issues they're passionate about.

Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

I'm referring to hundreds of Federal court houses and appealet courts around the u.s. Some, say many, judges have stayed long beyond their term stay and a replacement though nominated was never heard or approved. Not approving of one in a hearing is one thing. That is law. Refusing to have hearings to hear the testimony is unlawful.

Martin

Reply to
Martin H. Eastburn

Ever hear of the 9th ? Martin

Reply to
Martin H. Eastburn

Remember one has to get the judge approved by a packed court in the Senate. And yes when right wing types were ever selected they were roasted and toasted.

So middle and light left are often taken so a vote can be done. Martin

Reply to
Martin H. Eastburn

You really ought to look up your numbers before making statements like that, Martin. The last time I looked, there were more Republican-appointed federal judges than Dem-appointed ones, and Republican majorities particularly dominate the Federal Appeals Courts, which are the last stop before the Supreme Court. Unless Bush appointed a lot of Dems in the past two years, it's unlikely that pattern has changed. If the federal courts are "packed" with anything, it's Republicans.

As for how they decide cases, rarely are they anything that could be called ideological. All but a few cases would be decided the same by appointees of either pary, and federal judges are notorious for confounding the political ideologues who appoint them, on both sides -- despite Gunner's unsubstantiated assertion to the contrary.

Last year there were 12,948 civil cases and 7,118 criminal cases completed by Federal District Courts. What percentage of those decisions do you object to?

No, it's not.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

I said obstruction of justice in the Senate because the Dems refused to have hearings unless the person was their person.

I don't care how many are of this or that. Advise and consent was violated.

I happen to live in a very left wing section of the state. In fact the only operating Commie cell in the U.S. The county elects right wing judges. Ultra left wing mayors...

Mart>>Ed Huntress wrote:

Reply to
Martin H. Eastburn

That's not what you said in earlier messages, but sometimes we have to clear the crap away before we get to the real objection. The federal courts are dominated by Republican-appointed judges, so that isn't your real objection. The cases themselves are mostly non-ideological, so the general trend of the courts isn't your real objection.

If I had to guess (and I have to, because you're dancing around it too much to get it straight from you), it seems your objection is that we aren't going to wind up with an overwhelmingly conservative federal court system, because the Dems are blocking the hell out of appointments, right?

If Bush got his appointments through, 11 of the 13 Appelate courts would have Republican-dominated judicial compositions, and we'd be living with it for more than a generation. Don't get yourself exercised, Martin. It ain't going to happen. Nor would the Republicans in the Senate allow it to happen in the other direction, if a Democratic president were now in a position to overwhelm the courts with new appointments the way that Bush is, such that the courts would be overwhelmed ideologically. You'd probably be singing the praises of that fine piece of Congressional tradition, the filibuster, if that were the case right now.

Consent has been denied, through traditional Congressional protections for minority positions. There have been entire gaggles of Republicans that sung its praises in years past, when they were in the minority. Now the shoe is on the other foot. That's really most of what's going on here.

It must be an interesting place. d8-)

Oh, and don't forget: That old bastion of conservative Constitutional originalism, Robert Bork, says that the 2nd Amendment applies only to militias, and that in any case it does not provide any prohibition against state laws banning guns.

Sometimes we don't really want what we think we want. It's the court "liberals" who have been more inclined to find in favor of broad interpretations of the Bill of Rights.

You may notice I keep putting "conservative" and "liberal" in quotes when I refer to the courts, something that I don't do when I refer to legislators. That's because they can mean just the opposite of what we think they mean. A conservative judge, such as Anton Scalia or (marginally conservative, mostly originalist) Robert Bork, tends to be a minimalist about rights, granting the states and often Congress broad authority to write laws as they see fit. It's the "liberal" judges, such as Wm. O. Douglas or Justice Brennan, who tend to restrict government's executive and legislative power on the basis of the Bill of Rights. In fact, if you look at their decisions while they were on the bench, most people whose opinions are uncolored by resentment and bias would say those "liberals" actually were libertarians.

Ed Huntress

"The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people." -- William O. Douglas

Reply to
Ed Huntress

It astounds me that one faction is always in favor or expanding the executive branch's power - so long as thir party is in office. Otherwise, they will tell you that checks and balances works just fine, thanks very much.

Jim

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Reply to
jim rozen

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