What if Congress passed a law, the President signed it, the SCOTUS ruled it unconstitutional - and then the President and Congress just said “Eat Me.”? The only constraint that I know of is the independence of the judiciary. But the executive controls the law enforcement agencies, the federal prosecutors, and probably has some real power over who gets nominated to important benches. The vast majority of judges would presumably side with the SCOTUS, but what if a few tame judges could be found willing to enforce the unconstitutional law? If the President were guilty of illegal actions he could theoretically be impeached; but what if a friendly congress refused to indict him? Would the political hue and cry be too much, or could they get away with it? I’m vaguely aware of some 19th century case in which the SCOTUS ruled that the administration had illegally violated a Native American treaty, and the President (Jackson?) said something like “they’ve made a ruling, now they can enforce it”.
It was Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515 (1832) and Jackson’s quote was “John Marshall made his decision, now let him enforce it.”
Yes, indeed. But the big check on that is public outcry and the fact that Congress has never in its history really be unified enough to just blatantly and consistently ignore the USSC.
In fact Congress really has the power to castrate both the executive and the judiciary but these are all actions which are de facto impossible because of the divided nature of Congress.
Congress could expand the size of the Supreme Court, the President could pack it with his friends, and the Senate could approve those nominations. Bingo, the Supreme Court would “lose.” That’s not even considering the route of constitutional amendments.
Right. In theory and in fact, Congress has all the power needed to keep throwing out Presidents and Justices until they find those who will do the will of Congress. However, the best check on Congress is that it is a committee and committees are filled with individuals with different agendas, usually.
On occasion though, the general populace is paniced enough so that some pretty extreme measures by the government officials become possible. Sort of like now.
FDR tried that once.
It went nowhere.
Nah, we’re no where near that level.
Then why have the courts turned down the handling of “detainees” in most of the cases that someone has managed to get before them? Even the Supreme Court overruled the government’s assertion that detainees could be defined solely as the President decided and had no recourse to appeal the definition and decision through the courts.
The detainees who won those cases had already been held for several years without access to legal help or any means of disputing their Presidentialy defined status.
How extreme does it have to get before the freedom-loving among us get concerned?
A whole, whole, WHOLE lot more.
The only freedom I’ve lost since 9/11 is the freedom to board an airplane without it being assumed I’m a murdering, sub-human terrorist.
Ah yes, they are only after the terrorists. “First they came for the Jews but I was not a Jew …” and “Therefore send not to know for whom the bell tolls …”
It astonishes me that those who sneer at attempts at automobile or workplace safety with the claim that “Perfect safety isn’t attainable” and argue that attempts to improve safety are merely “throwing money” at an unrealistic goal will so willingly wave aside fears about government snooping, as long as it’s someone else being snooped, and the spending of borrowed billions in the search for perfect safety against terrorist attacks.