The Supreme Court was originally envisioned as a nonpartisan third branch of the government. With lifetime appointments and a mission to defend the Constitution, it was believed that the court would remain above the political fray.
But about 50 years ago, the court decided that with penumbras and emanations it could discover things in the Constitution that are not actually written there. Justices were no longer merely interpreting the Constitution. Under the guise of interpretation, they were rewriting it to suit the political leadership that had appointed them.
With this foray into politics, the Supreme Court inevitably became part of the swamp. They’re no longer scholars that understand the Constitution and its supporting documents. Now, they’re political players. That’s why Supreme Court appointments have become so contentious.
As political players, the justices have used their new found power to “discover” a whole host of “rights” that are not actually written in the Constitution. They’ve discovered:
- A right to privacy
- A right to abortion
- A right to same sex marriage
- A right for the government to seize private property for the benefit of other private enterprises
- A right for the government to regulate commerce within states
The issue isn’t whether any of these things are good or bad. The issue is that the voters, via their elected representation, should have been allowed to make these decisions.
While the justices have been busy inventing new rights, they’ve been missing in action when it comes to actually defending those rights which are written in the Constitution. They had a chance to defend our right to free and fair elections. Yet with evidence of massive fraud in the 2020 election, they chose to not get involved.
The right to bear arms is a key element of the Bill of Rights. Yet 230 years after this right was codified in the Constitution, it’s still a controversial issue. While the court dances around the edge of this issue, it refuses to make a clear and unambiguous statement that this is a fundamental individual right, which no state has the right to restrict. Even though the Constitution says it, the court will not reaffirm it.
Court support for our most sacred right (freedom of religion) has even softened in recent years. In South Bay Pentecostal Church v. Newsom, the Supreme Court held that California could not continue to order the closure of churches during the pandemic.
However, a reading of the ruling reveals that only three justices (Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch) held that freedom of religion trumps a state’s emergency orders. Three other Justices (Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barrett) simply held that the state could not place more severe restrictions on churches than it did for other businesses. The court reached the right decision, but only three justices held that our rights to free exercise of religion could not be restricted!
None of this has gone unnoticed by the citizenry. A recent Ipsos poll found that 63% of adults now support term limits for Supreme Court justices. Clearly the people have noticed the court’s relocation to swampland and want to take back control.
Convention of States Action’s push for term limits is a timely and necessary response to this issue.
