3 posts tagged “legislating from the bench”
The California proposition 8 is an issue that is bigger than the homosexual marriage issue. This is about 4 men thwarting the will of well over 60% of the people of California. This proposition will amend the constitution of California to put the gay marriage out of reach of those judges. Watch this video and take to heart the message Newt delivers about how fundamental this issue is to the design our founding fathers intended for this country. Activist judges have been imposing their will over the will of the people for decades. With this amendment, we Californians can send a message to all activist judges to abide by their intended roles and halt their over stepping the authority afforded them in the Constitutions of state and federal design.
I get too many newsletters. Back a couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article titled 'A Nation at War with Itself' It would have been nice to have read this article by Newt Gingrich to include a few points about how the war is being fought. I suppose I could call this a supplemental post, but the newsletter was there sitting in my inbox the whole time. This happens on a regular basis, but more so in the last month or more. I've addressed, so I should be able to do a better job of it now. I've posted the article here so you can read it for yourselves.
Judges overstepping their authority is nothing new. Newt informs us of the historical precedence of the presidential powers combining with the legislative powers to set them straight on their job description as I described in the original post. He specifically cites a case pertaining to Habeus Corpus and presidential authority to make policy in regard to enemy combatants. This authority may not be popular with the America hater crowd, but it is essential to the war effort. Since we do have a fifth column seated in Congress and since the MSM is complicit with enemies of the state and since the term is coming to an end for the current president, he will not be the presiding president over the correction of the judicial authority. Will the maverick do it? Probably. Depends on how far they go during his tenure.
Congress and the President Need Not Acquiesce to a Tyrannical Court
There is significant precedent in American history for believing that the legislative and executive branches can act to restrict the reach of judicial decisions as well as force the judicial branch into changing its views when they are out of touch with the constitutional values, practices, and traditions of America.President Thomas Jefferson and the Jeffersonians successfully fought back against the Federalists' use of the courts to impose their agenda over the will of the people. After the Federalists lost the election of 1800, but before the new Jeffersonian congressmen took office, the Federalists more than doubled the number of federal circuit judges (from seventeen to thirty-five) and packed them with loyal Federalists. The Jeffersonians reacted by simply eliminating all eighteen new federal circuit court judgeships.
President Abraham Lincoln refused to treat the Dred Scott decision, which both declared unconstitutional a federal law that had limited the extension of slavery and that blacks were not citizens under the Constitution, as legally binding on the executive branch. For example, his administration issued U.S. passports to free blacks and signed legislation that placed restrictions on slavery in the federal territories, positions at odds with the Dred Scott decision.
And in June 1942, when German spies who had landed in the U.S. to carry out acts of industrial espionage were captured by the FBI, President Franklin D. Roosevelt acted swiftly to signal to the Supreme Court that he was not going to entertain court intervention. First, FDR issued an executive order on July 2, 1942 that the detainees were to be subject to trial immediately by military commission. FDR also made clear to his attorney general what his reaction would be to any writ of habeas corpus: "One thing I want clearly understood . . . I won't give them up . . . I won't hand them to any United States marshal armed with a writ of habeas corpus." FDR understood the Supreme Court was supreme in the judicial branch but it was not supreme over the other two political branches.
The executive and legislative branches possess clear constitutional
powers to check and balance decisions of the judicial branch. The
Boumediene
decision requires that the executive and legislative branches act to
reestablish a constitutional balance among the three branches. I will
be writing more about this subject in weeks to come.
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| Newt Gingrich | ||
Biblical marriage vs. CA courts: Ruling
today Jeff Johnson - OneNewsNow - 6/16/2008 4:00:00 AM
Pro-family attorneys are trying another legal route to
block implementation of so-called "gay marriage" in California this
evening.
The California
Supreme Court has rejected appeals of its ruling that the state must
issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples beginning at 5:01 p.m.
(local time) today. But the Supreme Court's decision merely hands the
case back down to the California Court of Appeal, which is charged with
deciding how and when to implement the high court's ruling. It is that
power that Matt Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, is appealing to now.
"It should clearly be stayed because the people are going to vote in
November with regards to the California marriage protection amendment.
That's a matter that, in fact, we addressed before the California
Supreme Court, which they denied. However, the California Court of
Appeals has a separate, independent obligation to consider this matter
as well," contends the attorney.
Liberty Counsel filed a petition last week with the appeals court on behalf of the Campaign for California Families,
asking the court to delay issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples
for that and other reasons. "The California Supreme Court only
addressed two of the many statutes regarding marriage. You can't simply
address two statutes when there's [sic] literally hundreds of others,
all of which reference 'men' and 'women,' 'male' and 'female,'
'husband' and 'wife,' all of which have to be addressed," Staver
explains.
The Liberty Counsel chairman says failure to take matters such as that
under consideration is one of the primary reasons the U.S. and state
constitutions do not let judges write laws. "All of the confusion
illustrates one point: judges should not be in the business of being
politically active lawmakers," Staver points out.
The appeals court, according to the attorney, should stay the decision
to give the legislature time to examine the hundreds of other state
statutes that could come into conflict with the Supreme Court's ruling.
"It's that court which is tasked with implementing the particular
ruling. It's at that level we're asking, now, this court to do its job,
to follow the rule of law and to stay this decision," Staver says.
Liberty Counsel's press release says this case "is far from over. We
will not give up. The people will have the final say on marriage."
