THE
SUPREME COURT
While
it is true that we are facing a serious Constitutional crisis in the Supreme
Court with the death of the brilliant conservative justice Antonin Scalia, few
people realize that this is just the inevitable result of a constitutional
crisis involving the court that has been building up for years.
It has largely been ignored because
unfortunately many Americans don’t understand that the Supreme Court was
designed by the founding fathers to be a separate, but equal branch with the Congress
and the Executive Branch headed by the President. Article 3, Section 2 of the
Constitution establishes the limited jurisdiction of the court. It states in
part that: “The judicial Power shall extend to all cases, in Law and Equity,
arising under the Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties
made, or which shall be made, under their Authority…” This also includes
“Controversies between two or more states” or between citizens of different
states.
When you read Article 3 of the Constitution
you will find that there is nothing that authorizes the Supreme Court or any
other federal court to make new laws, amend existing laws, and certainly not to
amend the Constitution on their own. Yet, that is what activist federal judges
at all levels, including the Supreme Court have decided they are entitled to
do. This change was orchestrated over the years by Democrats in the White House
and the U.S. Senate, and unfortunately aided and abetted by weak Republican
Presidents and Senators who were willing to compromise with the Democrats.
Obama, his fellow Democrats in the
House and Senate, as well as the liberal news media are demanding that the
Senate vote on any one nominated by the President. They claim it is required by
the Constitution when in fact that there is no such requirement. The
Constitution requires that any nominee be approved by the Senate before taking
a seat on the court. It does not require that the Senate schedule a vote if it
refuses to do so, which itself constitutes a rejection of the nominee.
Ironically, when you listen to the
arguments made by the left, they are essentially demanding that the Republicans
in the Senate vote to affirm whoever Obama nominates, regardless of whether or
not they will defend the U.S, Constitution and the liberties protected by it.
This is another example of the hypocrisy of the left. The fact is that the last
three Supreme Court nominees rejected in up or down votes in the Senate were
nominees of Republican presidents and the nominations were defeated by Democrat
controlled Senates.
When Obama was in the Senate while
George W. Bush was president he voted against both of Bush’s nominees to the
Supreme Court, and joined with other Democrats to keep most of the other Bush
nominees to serve on other federal courts from even being voted on. He did this
simply because he opposed anyone on the court who did not agree with his
efforts to destroy the Constitution. Yet,
both of the Obama nominees to the court received votes from republican senators
and have consistently followed the Obama/progressive agenda.
That is why Republican Senators have
to stand firm and not allow Obama to appoint another justice who will ignore
the Constitution, amend it, or legislate from the bench. Too often in the past
Republican Presidents have nominated so-called moderates to the Supreme Court
like Anthony Kennedy, and Republican Senators have voted to affirm leftist
judges like Kagan and Sotomayor.
There should, in fact, be a litmus
test for Supreme Court appointees. The test should be whether they will abide
by their oath of office to “support and defend the
Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same…” or whether they will
consider themselves above the law and superior to the Constitution.
The same test
should be applied to candidates for congress and particularly to candidates for
President. If the progressives gain control of the Supreme Court we will be
effectively under the dictatorship that Obama, Hilary Clinton, and Bernie
Sanders want to impose upon us. We have to put the brakes on this runaway train
we are on that is carrying us to the destruction of our Constitutional
republic, our economy, and our Constitutional rights.
It is time that
as Americans we alert the politicians of both parties that if they continue to
fail us and allow our Constitution to be taken down, we will have no choice but
to exercise the ultimate power granted to us by the Declaration of
Independence, that allows us to alter or abolish a government that subjects us
to tyranny. The specific language is “But when a long train of
abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design
to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty,
to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future
security.”
The concept is certainly not new in
this country, it is called revolution, and it may soon be our last resort.
Michael
Connelly
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