Exactly. It’s also why the Federal government cannot enforce Federal drug laws where certain drugs are legal within a State unless enforcing said law in the commission of a crime across State borders. There’s a reason why we have State laws/governments and not everything is simply under the jurisdiction of the Federal government. One reason is the Federal government simply does not have the resources to go door to door ensuring every citizen is not in possession of “controlled substances” nor is it feasibly worthwhile for them to, treaty or no treaty. Now on the other hand IF you’re talking about a distributor crossing state lines or international borders, different story.
You never answered my question. What wording in our Constitution confers a power to “interpret” the Constitution?
What you quoted are the jurisdictional limits of the judicial Power of the United States. Seems to me you are intentionally ignoring fundamental directives placed upon our judges and Justices:
Article VI, last Clause:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Are you suggesting there are no rules which govern constitutional construction?
JWK
If the Constitution was ratified under the belief, sedulously propagated on all sides, that such protection was afforded, would it not now be a fraud upon the whole people to give a different construction to its powers?___ Justice Story
You never answered my questions regarding your assertions.
What wording in our Constitution confers a power to “interpret” the Constitution?
Are you suggesting there are no rules which govern constitutional construction?
JWK
The Constitution is the act of the people, speaking in their original character, and defining the permanent conditions of the social alliance; and there can be no doubt on the point with us, that every act of the legislative power contrary to the true intent and meaning of the Constitution, is absolutely null and void. ___ Chancellor James Kent, in his Commentaries on American Law , 1858.
Contrary to Roberts assertion that, “… these judges should be viewed as being unbiased politically and performing their duty as sworn to do,” they “should” only be viewed in this manner when they actually perform their duty and abide by the oath they took, which is certainly not always the case, as I have documented, and that would include Justice Roberts malfeasance, misfeasance and nonfeasance in the Obamacare case!
To this very day, Justice Roberts has failed to point to the provision in our Constitution granting power to Congress to enter the states to control, regulate and meddle in the people’s choices therein regarding the healthcare needs.
JWK
Obamacare by consent of the governed, Article 5, our Constitution`s amendment process. Tyranny by a majority vote in Congress or a Supreme Court’s majority vote
I understand that Supreme Court justices can be impeached and removed by the mutual agreement of the President and Congress or the Senate:
“Per Article 124(4) of the constitution, President can remove a judge on proved misbehaviour or incapacity when parliament approves with a majority of the total membership of each house in favour of impeachment and not less than two thirds of the members of each house present.”
That doesn’t annul the independence of the justice, but would hold them accountable for their actions. Independence does not equate to reckless unaccountability/ immunity from censure for habitually bending the law to produce outcomes contrary to the intent of the constitution.
1 Like
There are people; lawyers, judges, folks in the intelligence community and in many other professions who can, actually, set aside their philosophical leanings to do their job fairly.
This skill is, in my opinion, the very highest aspect of human consciousness. To compartmentalize. To individuate. It is beautiful, aspirational and essential to a functioning judiciary.
Because partisans have, literally, no such skill they assume others don’t. They are incorrect.
2 Likes
Nonsense,JayJay. You seem to think that once the SC justice passes muster by their appointment by the President and the legislature POTUS has no legitimate clout in their censure and possible removal.
“Per Article 124(4) of the constitution, President can remove a judge on proved misbehaviour or incapacity when parliament approves with a majority of the total membership of each house in favour of impeachment and not less than two thirds of the members of each house present.”
If you ask someone to decide if something is or is not constitutional, you’re asking them to interpret what the constitution says in order to apply it to a particular context. If the Constitution was an all encompassing document which specifically addressed every possible legal situation we wouldn’t need to interpret it. The Constitution does not address every possible legal situation, so it must be interpreted and then applied to the multitude of situations that arise.
The federal judiciary has the task of determining constitutional merit. Since the Constitution does not expressly cover every possible legal situation it must be interpreted in the context of new situations. It’s as simple as that.
Justice Roberts is making a self serving statement for his team. Nothing wrong with that. It is the political thing to do.
Dems know that there is political importance to whom is nominated and approved for judgeships. That’s why they squealed so much over Kavanaugh…and are still squealing.
Why are you referring to the Constitution of India?
2 Likes
roberts feels guilty and as well he should, obama people can’t be quiet just like their nemesis.
LOL
10 LOL’s
1 Like
It’s a little early to be moving on from the invasion, don’t you think john?
I mean all of our lives are in terrible danger and the horde is still charging toward our border as I type. Is it really the right time for another mind numbing wall of text on some other topic?
What team is Roberts on? Can’t say he’s a Democrat, cause he ain’t. But I can see why some have deemed him one, because his decision on ObamaCare didn’t sit well.
No one is still squealing over Boozin Brett.
Brett is confirmed and is doing what he was sworn in to do.
We are not talking about me asking "someone" what the constitution means. We are talking about a judge or Justice charged with a duty to “support this Constitution".
If a judge or Justice, by the terms of our Constitution, is granted authority to “interpret” the instrument, it is then susceptible to alterations by interpretation. Are there not countless interpretations of Shakespeare’s Sonnets? If ten people are asked to “interpret” a picture hanging on a wall, is it not probable ten different “interpretations” will be given?
Indeed, nowhere in the Constitution will you find wording vesting a power in our Supreme Court to “interpret” the Constitution. In fact, our Constitution is explicitly clear when it comes to a Justice’s authorized duty:
Article VI, last Clause:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution;but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
The Constitution also directs the Court to abide by “the rules of the common law”. And, under the rules of the common law, adhering to “legislative intent” is a primary directive! As I previously pointed out, Chief Justice Marshall, in a newspaper article published in the Alexandria Gazette, July 2, 1819, emphatically stated he could "cite from [the common law] the most complete evidence that the intention is the most sacred rule of interpretation."
In Hawaii v. Mankichi, 190 U.S. 197 (1903), our Supreme Court also notes the supremacy of legislative intent:
”But there is another question underlying this and all other rules for the interpretation of statutes, and that is what was the intention of the legislative body? Without going back to the famous case of the drawing of blood in the streets of Bologna, the books are full of authorities to the effect that the intention of the lawmaking power will prevail even against the letter of the statute; or, as tersely expressed by Mr. Justice Swayne in 90 U.S. 380 :
“A thing may be within the letter of a statute and not within its meaning, and within its meaning, though not within its letter. The intention of the lawmaker is the law.”
So, the duty of a judge or Justice, when asked what a provision of the Constitution means, or asked if a legislative act runs afoul of our Constitution, their job is to document, with a preponderance of evidence, the meaning and legislative intent of the provisions as it was understood during the time our Constitution was framed and ratified. This, of course, requires researching some of the following documents: Madison’s Notes on the Convention, the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers, Elliot’s debates which contains some of the State Ratification debates, etc.
The bottom line is, there are fundamental rules which must be followed when trying to determine what our Constitution means. And to allow these rules to be set aside in favor of a judges or Justices personal interpretation is to allow our constitution to be dismantled and re-write one provision at a time.
JWK
"If the Constitution was ratified under the belief, sedulously propagated on all sides, that such protection was afforded, would it not now be a fraud upon the whole people to give a different construction to its powers?"___ Justice Story
Trolling:
A troll is a person that never offers anything of value or substance to the boards. The troll has no intention of taking part in discussions, save to try and ruin them for others. Any posts that are not conducive to debate, seek to derail a thread with trolling comments or off-topic discussion are subject to being edited or deleted with or without further sanctions at the discretion of the moderators.
How judges and Justices subjugate constitutional limitations.
To a large degree I agree with your statement that “[t]here are people; lawyers, judges . . . who can, actually, set aside their philosophical leanings to do their job fairly.” But then there are judges and Justices who use their position of public trust in a manner which blatantly violates the terms of our Constitution, and I believe in many cases it is done to impose their personal predilections as the rule of law.
I stumbled upon this when tenaciously studying a number of cases. I even identified the perverted manner in which these scoundrels violate the very intentions and beliefs under which a number of our Constitution’s provisions were adopted.
One of the Supreme Court‘s “inventions” used to subvert the text and legislative intent of our Constitution and impose its will upon the people unknown to those who framed and ratified our Constitution, are various tests the court has created.
These “tests” began to appear and gain a foothold during the Warren Court of the l960’s. One such test was the "rationality" test under which a law being challenged had to withstand the court’s arbitrary judgment that the law in question was “rationally based” or “reasonable” to survive the court‘s review. Of course, this allows activist members on the court to switch the subject from what is and what is not constitutional during litigation, to a question having nothing to do with its constitutionality.
Whether rational or not, a law which violates the Constitution cannot be justified as being constitutional if it is rationally based! Likewise, if a law is not rationally based it is not the Court’s job to second guess the wisdom of the legislature or our Constitution! For the court to engage in this activity is to usurp legislative authority and ignore the separation of powers in our system of government, not to mention how such action negates the very reason for elections, which, in most cases, is to change public policy via appropriate legislation.
For example, imaging for a moment that Black males were denied employment by a state government based upon their race and the court, in spite of the 14th Amendment’s intended protection against state imposed race discrimination, upheld the denial of employment because the local government presented an “exceedingly persuasive justification” for not hiring Black males. This is what these tests are about. They create a platform for members on the Court to ignore identifying and enforcing the intentions and beliefs under which provisions our Constitution were adopted in order to impose their personal whims and fancies upon the people as the rule of law using flowery terms and phrases to justify ignoring the will of the people as expressed in a written Constitution!
By the early 1970’s the Court using a variety of invented “tests” [rationally based, compelling state interest, intermediate scrutiny, strict scrutiny, etc.], started to appear which blatantly ignored the documented intentions and beliefs under which various provisions of our Constitution were adopted, and were used to impose a majority of the Court’s own ideas of social justice, fairness and reasonableness as the rule of law. Some of the early cases which demonstrate the Court’s attack upon the text and documented legislative intent of our Constitution’s provisions which gives context to its text, and imposing its will as the rule of law using these newly created tests are Reed vs. Reed 404 U.S. 71 (1971), Frontiero vs Richardson 411 U.S. 677 (1973), Craig v. Boren 429 U.S. 190 (1976), and Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, (1973).
It is also important to note that the ACLU and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was a volunteer for the American Civil Liberties Union in the 1970’s, were both active in the above mentioned cases and assisted the court in engineering clever words and phrases in conjunction with “tests” which were designed to parse words and circumvent the very intentions and beliefs under which the 14th Amendment was adopted.
When Ginsburg became a member of the Supreme Court the ground work had already been laid with her help in establishing these despotic tests as part of the Court’s arsenal used by its activist members to make the Constitution mean whatever they wished it to mean.
For example, in delivering the Court’s opinion in the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) case, decided June 26, 1996, which commanded the Institute to accept women by citing the 14th Amendment as forbidding sex discrimination, Ginsburg pointed to previous Supreme Court rulings and the invented tests in question, and asserted a party seeking to uphold government action making a distinction based upon sex must establish an "exceedingly persuasive justification" In addition, Ginsburg noted, “The justification must be genuine, not hypothesized or invented post hoc in response to litigation. And it must not rely on overbroad generalizations about the different talents, capacities, or preferences of males and females.”
But the fact remains, Ginsburg, in delivering the opinion, never established that under the 14th Amendment the people of America decided to prohibit distinctions based upon gender in addition to their intentional prohibition against state legislation based upon “race and color”! And, the fact remains, Justice Ginsburg couldn’t establish this constitutional prohibition (sex discrimination) because time and again during the debates which framed the 14th Amendment the intended prohibition against discrimination was specifically identified as being limited to discrimination based upon “race, color, or former condition of slavery”, and only intended to apply in a very narrow area and protect the inalienable right of Blacks: “to make and enforce contracts, to sue…to inherit, purchase…property as was then enjoyed by white citizens. “Congress did not assume…to adjust what may be called the social rights of men…but only to declare and vindicate these fundamental rights.”___ see the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3,22 (1883)
The argument that the wording in the 14th Amendment: (a)“all persons”, (b)"No State shall make any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of United States.", [c] "[N]or deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws", as being evidence the 14th Amendment was intended to forbid distinctions based upon sex, or intended to be a universal rule to bar every imaginable type of discrimination, such as in Martin vs. PGA Tour, and also includes discrimination based upon sex, falls flat on its face when reading the words of next Amendment to the Constitution!
This Amendment (the 15th) prohibits a new type of discrimination not covered by the 14th Amendment! It prohibits discrimination, or to be more accurate, prohibits the right of voting to be denied or abridged on account of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The intent of the 15th Amendment clearly being to enlarge the prohibition on state, race based discrimination mentioned in the 14th Amendment, enlarging it to include the prohibition at the voting booth —forbidding discrimination at the voting booth to be based upon “race, color, or previous condition of servitude“, while gender, and in particularly females, were not yet included in the protection.
The argument that the 14th Amendment prohibits state discrimination based upon gender, becomes even weaker when reading the 19th Amendment which specifically forbids a new kind of discrimination. In this Amendment, the People of America decide by a constitutional amendment to forbid gender discrimination [the discrimination mentioned by Ginsburg] but only extend the prohibition with respect to the right to vote being “denied or abridged” on account of “sex”
If the 14th Amendment prohibited every kind of discrimination, including discrimination based upon sex as Ginsburg alleged in the VMI Case, then why were these subsequent Amendments added to the Constitution after the adoption of the 14th Amendment?
Finally, why would there have been a proposed and so-call equal rights amendment attempted to be added to the Constitution of the United States in the 1980’s to prohibit sex discrimination which never received the required number of ratifying States, if the 14th Amendment already prohibited discrimination based upon sex as Ginsburg alleges?
The bottom line is, many of our judges and Justices, including Justice Ginsburg, are acting in rebellion to our written Constitution and the documented intentions and beliefs under which it was adopted. Indeed, many of our judges and Justices are in fact "legislating from the bench" so as to impose their personal sense of justice, fairness and reasonableness using a variety of tests which, during litigation, switch the subject of a law’s constitutionality, to a question of the lawmakers wisdom, reasonableness, fairness and/or justice. And to meet the Court’s standards a law must be “reasonable“ and reflect what activists on the Court arbitrarily fancy as social justice.
In fact, a law in question to pass Ginsburg’s test, must have an "exceedingly persuasive justification" and “The justification must be genuine, not hypothesized or invented post hoc in response to litigation”, regardless of whether or not the law is within the four corners of our Constitution which no longer appears to be an important factor to Ginsburg and her tyrannical friends on the Court who wish to impose their personal whims and fancies as the rule of law.
JWK
“The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges’ views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice.” – Justice Hugo L. Black ( U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1886 - 1971) Source: Lecture, Columbia University, 1968
I’ve stopped caring at this point. Word salad is a debate tactic I don’t care to fight. Luckily, the majority of rational adults understand the role of the judicial branch in the interpretation of laws and the constitution. If you can’t, or simply refuse to understand that, it really doesn’t matter.
Constitution of India. Google search gone wrong?
Seems Google is not your friend if you Google the wrong thing lol
Because, unfortunately, that’s what came up when I asked, "Can a US Supreme Court Justice be removed from the bench?’
Never mind. I see that only the Senate can remove a Justice after the House impeaches. But there is no legal barrier to the President expressing his opinion on the decisions of Supreme Court justices or even requesting the House and Senate to remove one, like any other citizen may do, despite the fact that the removal itself is not his to do.
