I get a lot of my impressions about Newt Gingrich from what Jerry Pournelle says about him in his blog. He has actually known Gingrich since the eighties. He actually has a high opinion of Gingrich’s mind, but not such a high opinion of his mouth. Trying out ideas in a late night bull session is one thing, but trotting them out in public when you are the Speaker of the House or a candidate for President is another thing.
So in Newtie-land could a judge also call the entire congress to his court to have them explain why they passed a ridiculous law? Could the President? Could the President be called before a judge to explain a veto? Could anything be done about the additional levels of ridiculous grid-lock this would add to the whole fucked up as it is process?
Yup, still a separation of powers issue in my book. The remedy in the hypothetical you propose is either to amend the Constitution, or to pass new legislation and hope it passes muster with SCOTUS.
Brown vs Board of Education* was considered a pretty outrageous decision in some parts of the country. Now, most people realize that it was the correct decision, but in Newt-land, a similarly controversial decision could result in a constitutional crisis of epic proportions.
A SCOTUS justice needs four of his fellows to go along with any decisions though. One can picture one judge going nuts and ignoring all law and precedent, but its pretty hard to see five of them doing so at once (and all in the same way).
And a lower court judge needs at least one judge to go along, and is also subject to appeal.
So our system already has a fair number of safe-guards in place to protect us from this scenario.
No, but putting it this way don’t make it sound much better. He’s declaring war on the basic constitutional principle of the political independence of the judiciary. FDR never went that far.
This is exactly the problem. Bush v Gore could have torn the country apart if cool heads in the Democratic party had not quashed attempts to have Congress challenge the results. If it had gone the other way people like Newt would have pushed it to the limit and God knows what would have happened. Imagine if Newt had been in power during B v BOE? Would he have sent in the National Guard, or just let the governor thumb his nose at the court?
“Could have”?
Yes. But I have to wonder if Gingrich really intends to seriously pursue any of these things if he were to become president. Somehow I think for him they’re more like hypotheticals that he puts out simply to differentiate himself toward the nomination, and that in the back of his mind they’re justified as the idle speculation of a history professor.
I would not be surprised if Newt tried out any of his grand ideas IRL. He really does think it’s his destiny to change the world, for the better. He’s kinda nuts like that.
I think the danger is that he’ll feel he needs to “double down” on his ideas, even if he wasn’t really seriously proposing them, just to make it look like he’s semi-serious
Honestly, I think thats more or less how he came to be running for President. For the last eight years, he would occasionally muse on news talk shows that he might run for Prez. Finally, he feels like he has to make good on that or look ridiculous (or, if you prefer, more ridiculous then usual).
Let’s be clear here: When Gingrich singles out “activist” or “elitist” judges, he’s talking about “liberal” judges who make decisions against his own conservative notions. Funny that he never made this argument when Obama essentially nullified the Defense of Marriage Act last February–in fact Gingrich thought Obama should be impeached:
To be fair (a notion the opportunist Gingrich is wholly unfamiliar with), he backtracked on this once the quotes got out of the epistemic bubble that is the right-wing blogosphere. However, is it really surpising with his history of hypocrisy that a bomb-thrower like Newt would say this?
The courts are the institution perhaps the public institution most directly involved with the execution of power that the individual citizens will experience. So it is a problem when judges are not under the control and have to answer to the citizens. But it was my understanding that judges in the USA already are up for election. Much worse is the situation in Europe.
Rune, federal judges are appointed by the President and can be removed from office essentially only if convicted of a crime (or if the court they serve on is abolished). Only certain state court judges are elected.
I doubt any federal judge has been subpoenaed by Congress outside of impeachment proceedings in 200 years. Congress has two Constitutional checks on the judiciary: impeachment, and amending underlying laws.
There is certainly no provision for demanding that they appear before Congress or the President to explain themselves… and that is as it should be.
Nope, not at the federal level. Federal judges are appointed by the President, and serve for the rest of their lives, unless they retire or get impeached. And no, they should not be directly answerable to the people. If they were,* Dred Scott* and* Plessy v. Ferguson* might still be the law of the land.
In some States…perhaps most, but I’m not sure…judges are elected. My state has elected judges. This leads to considerable pressure on the judges to do what is popular rather than what is right. As an example of why this is problematic, I offer this USA Today article on how Iowa voted out three members of their Supreme Court after the Court approved gay marriage.
You seem to operating in alternate universe where the Democrats were control of Congress in 2000. Also spinning scenarios about what Gingrich might have done is nothing but paranoid wish fulfillment.
I remember how confusing it was left wing Democrats in July 1974 when Nixon turned over the tapes on the orders of the Supreme Court. Some of them expected Nixon to lock up the Supreme Court and institute martial law.
Judges do explain their decisions when they make them. It is called an opinion or statement of decision.
Not always, and in fact not even most of the time. Appellate courts quite commonly affirm without commend.
Or destroy the parts of the tape with incriminating information…
Ah, how far we’ve come. Back in the mists of time, even Nixon would not mess with the Supreme Court. Now, a candidate for president moots the idea of muzzling or arresting the Supremes if they would dare to make an opinion that he disagrees with.