Phyllis Schlafly put herself through college working the night shift at the St. Louis Ordnance Plant, firing rifles and machine guns in order to test ammunition for troops during World War II. Sixty years later, she has lost none of her nerve, none of her energy, and none of her aim. Now, she has leveled her powerful intellectual guns at an out-of-control judiciary, and her new book The Supremacists is a powerful manifesto for our times.
Mrs. Schlafly is known to most Americans through her work as a conservative activist, her radio show, and her many public appearances. In many ways, she invented the modern conservative movement as a mobilization of grassroots efforts. Her 1964 book, A Choice Not an Echo, was a manifesto for citizen activism, and a generation of Americans--especially women--rallied to her cause. In 1972 she founded the group now known as Eagle Forum, and she deserves credit for leading the charge against the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. Having just celebrated her eightieth birthday, Phyllis Schlafly shows no signs of retirement--much less of retreat.
In The Supremacists, Mrs. Schlafly issues a cogent and well-considered warning to her fellow Americans. "The United States Constitution did not create judicial supremacy or consign us to be ruled by a judicial oligarchy," she reminds. "On the contrary, the Constitution separated the vast powers of the federal government into three branches--legislative, executive, and judicial--with an ingenious system of checks and balances so that each branch can serve as a continuing check on the others." Nevertheless, though the founders did not create judicial supremacy, this nation has experienced a usurpation of power by judges that may well undermine the integrity of our national government.
Phyllis Schlafly is a trained and experienced lawyer, and she addresses this issue as both lawyer and citizen. Her passion is evident, even as her documentation is convincing. Mrs. Schlafly takes her reader back to the founding era, when James Madison wrote in Federalist 51 that the government's constituent parts must, "by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places." In Federalist 78, Alexander Hamilton advised that the judiciary "will always be the least dangerous" branch of government. Of course, he had a constitutionally restrained judiciary in mind.
As Mrs. Schlafly reminds, the Constitution invests no legislative authority in the judiciary--none at all. Nevertheless, activist judges have usurped a legislative power even if they are denied a legislative authority. As she explains, "The judicial supremacists refuse to be bound by the words of the United States Constitution or the intent of its Framers. Instead, they espouse the theory that the Constitution is a 'living document' which can change according to judicially directed 'evolution'." A series of activist judges, including several seated on the United States Supreme Court, have pressed this agenda of judicial supremacy. As Mrs. Schlafly explains, when the late Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan argued in 1982 for "the evolution of constitutional doctrine" and for the law to "transcend the printed page," he was setting the philosophical framework for judicial supremacy. Similarly, when the late Justice William O. Douglas referred to the Due Process Clause in the Constitution as "the wildcard to be put to such use as the judges choose," he was asserting the spirit and the substance of judicial supremacy in action.
What happened? Phyllis Schlafly suggests that nothing less than a revolution has taken place, driven by activist judges. She cites Judge Robert H. Bork who argues that the courts are now dominated by "faux intellectuals of the Left" who practice "politics masquerading as law." As Mrs. Schlafly explains, "Americans believe that revolutionaries usually come dressed in military garb, but Judge Bork details how America has suffered a coup d'etat by men and women in black robes who have changed the rule of law to the rule of judges."
Comments