Campaign for the Popular Sovereignty Amendment Gets Underway

I spoke to you in January about my proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution to allow a super-majority of state legislatures to override the Supreme Court on constitutional questions.  The campaign for the amendment is now underway.

I put up a webpage and sent the link to my mailing list.  I will update the page from time to time. 

The webpage has my Constitution Minute from January where I lay out the problem - authoritarian top-down directives from the Supreme Court - and the solution - an amendment to put power back in the hands of We the People where it belongs.

That’s as far as I’ve gotten.  Next steps include gathering allies and preparing the ground for public acceptance of the amendment.

The best thing I’ve read on the subject recently came from Daniel Horowitz in Conservative Review in September.  The article is entitled “Our Founders never thought the courts had the final say — and neither should we.”  The article talks about a “dictatorship of the robes” that came about when the judiciary began to assert that its rulings applied outside the judicial branch.  Prior to that moment, courts may have issued opinions on constitutional questions, but they were considered binding only on other courts, not on the other branches of government.  In those days, Congress and the Executive branch were active participants in interpreting the Constitution. 

But now, judicial review has become judicial exclusivity, with courts having the final say on constitutional questions and issuing opinions which purport to bind the entire country, not just the parties before them or other courts.  In contrast, early in our history, Horowitz writes:

• ... nobody ever thought the courts would be the final say, especially if they concocted revolutionary adulterations of the Constitution and the contours of fundamental rights.... You didn’t have people who believed that redefining marriage, life, human sexuality, and national borders is in the Constitution.

Horowitz concludes by saying:

• The notion of the Supreme Court as a categorical veto of law and policy for the purposes of the other branches is likely the most dangerous legal fiction in American history.

It’s often said in Tea Party circles that people get the government they deserve.  If we sit back and wait for another social engineer on the Supreme Court to tell us what to do and how to be, we will deserve our fate.  Or we can do something about it - join me.