They're Worried

The hearings last week at the Supreme Court have the left all in a tizzy. It seems that the arguments that they so dismissed so casually were actually taken as interesting, relevant arguments that had weight. Jeffrey Toobin weigh in, at the New Yorker, in an article dated interestingly enough April 9, 2012.

and it is—or should be—a grave and unusual step for unelected, unaccountable, life-tenured judges to overrule the work of the democratically elected branches of government.

Oooh! I see where this is going. Unelected, unaccountable, life-tenured judges. Yet this is where Toobin has it exactly wrong. The sole purpose of those unelected, life-tenured judges is to rule on the law and on the acts of Congress. That is their whole reason for being. They are supposed to be above the political fray, the original, unassailable Ivory Tower. They can make their decisions in a vacuum, and they should. The vacuum of law, but more particularly, the vacuum of the Constitution.

The whole point of enumerated powers is to set limits on the actions of Congress and the Executive. To my way of thinking, Supreme Courts in the past have strayed too far outside the paper boundaries of the Constitution, finding powers and rights that are only found by doing double-back-flips of judicial interpretation. I believe that the Commerce clause as we understand it today is a broad overreach of judicial activism.

I understand our President is bothered also by the case, and well he should be. If his landmark, signature accomplishment is tossed out, all he'll have to fall back on is a lousy economy and high gas prices.

In the meantime, it is interesting to watch the liberals worry themselves over what the Supremes might do. Were I a Republican congressman, I'd immediately propose a Constitutional amendment that all Supreme Court justices be elected to two-year terms by national election. That would take the issue of unaccountable, life-tenured judges out of the equation. I'm sure that the nation would immediately move to adopt it.

Hat tip: Hot Air.