| We are so used to having a left-leaning Court that the idea that the Court might make any of these decisions seems odd. To have three rulings in a single week is extraordinary.
The implications of this week go far beyond the merits of these individual cases.
For decades, leftist lawyers in America have used the courts to advance their agenda. And often, it has to be said, the Supreme Court helped them along the way. Federal power was significantly, and deliberately, extended by Chief Justice Earl Warren, for example.
Now that the Court has a more balanced range of justices sitting on the bench, we are starting to see some of the judicial and federal aggrandizement of the past half century or so being reverse. And about time, too.
Americans are never going to agree on everything. The political priorities and values of folk in Massachusetts, Minnesota or Mississippi are never going to be precisely aligned. So why not let states do more things differently?
When the Founders drafted the Constitution, they expected that the Supreme Court would rule on the basis of what the law said, not rule on the basis of what they would like the law to say. The recent rise of judicial activism has seen this idea of the Court’s role abandoned, and in doing so, it has undermined the Constitution, handed power to federal bureaucrats and done a great deal to poison American politics.
A truly conservative Court would recognize this and undo the damage by returning to the more minimalist, restrained role that the Founders envisaged for the Supreme Court. Less Ruth Ginsburg, more James Madison, please. |
