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TechnoratiThis contest is not about words, it is about wills. It is about the wills of activist judges intent on fashioning a society to fit their own vision, and it is about the will of the people and their elected representatives who used to cherish and believe in the right to self government. Do we still have the will to govern ourselves? Or will we submit like sheep to judicial elites who think they know what's best for everybody else? Will the executive and legislative branches, acting like co-equals, step up and rein in these errant judges, or will they blindly submit like a subordinate stepchild to a higher authority? Will legislators impeach judges who fraudulently misrepresent the requirements of our foundational documents? Will executives refuse to carry out the decisions of judges who make hash of the Constitution? Will voters refuse to retain judges who are unfaithful to the language and intent of the laws and constitutions? Will they insist on electing executives and legislators who will go nose to nose with the courts on the language and meaning of the laws of our states and our country?
Americans have not always had the view of judicial supremacy that prevails today. Thomas Jefferson acknowledged that judicial review included review of the acts of the President and Congress, but he thought those branches had a right to decide for themselves whether to accept the high courts' ruling. Andrew Jackson, disagreeing with a decision of the high court on an Indian removal issue spotlighted the differences between the role of the judiciary and the role of the executive when he remarked, "John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it." Abraham Lincoln, in the aftermath of the Dred Scott decision, acknowledged the danger of judicial despotism in his First Inaugural Address. Lincoln stated, "The candid citizen must confess that, if the policy of the government upon the vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decision of the Supreme Court… the people will have ceased to be their own masters, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal."
Judicial tyranny by any other name is still tyranny. Do Americans still have the will to resist it? Only time will tell.
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Ken Connor is Chairman of the Center for a Just Society in Washington, DC and a nationally recognized trial lawyer who represented Governor Jeb Bush in the Terri Schiavo case. Connor was formally President of the Family Research Council, Chairman of the Board of CareNet, and Vice Chairman of Americans United for Life. For more articles and resources from Mr. Connor and the Center for a Just Society, go to www.ajustsociety.org. Your feedback is welcome; please email info@ajustsociety.org.
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