The Supreme Court Has Made a Major Course Correction

Wow! What a month it has been for the Supreme Court. It has handed down a handful of the most consequential rulings of our generation. Not one. Not two. But a bunch of them. It all bodes well for our Republic and for an Article V Convention of States.

One of the arguments I hear from skeptics of an Article V convention is that the Constitution has become irrelevant anyway. They argue that no matter what we write in an amendment, the court will somehow decide that it means something different from what it says. 

Who can blame them? For almost 60 years, since Justice William O. Douglas found a right to privacy lurking in a penumbra in 1965, the justices have had a party finding “creative” ways to interpret the Constitution. The use of such faulty logic has not evolved the Constitution to adjust for changes in our society; it has undermined the relevancy of the entire document. This practice has continued right up to this session of the Supreme Court. (Looking at you Chief Justice Roberts, for rescuing Obamacare from its own clear language.)

But that all came to a crashing halt when the Court issued its rulings a few weeks ago. Clearly, John Roberts is no longer the ideological leader of the court. He has become little more than a fringe player in the Court, which he is supposedly in charge of.

Based on the opinions that have come out, Justice Clarence Thomas has clearly taken over as the ideological leader of the court. And his ideology is originalism. He believes the Constitution means what it says. Imagine that!

That means there are no penumbras peeking out from behind emanations – or is it emanations peeking out from penumbras – I forget. No Harvard law degree is required to break the secret code of the Constitution. Just read it. If it says something, it means it. If it doesn’t say something, it’s not there. Simple, no? And yet it is such a departure from what we have become accustomed to.

Just marvel at the rulings that have been handed down in the last month.

While the striking down of Roe v. Wade returned the abortion debate to the people – as it should be – it marks an even more significant turning point for the Court itself. The Alito decision makes it clear that this Supreme Court is done with making stuff up and pretending that the Constitution says something it doesn’t. The implications for that go way beyond abortion.

They also did away with the fiction that there is a separation of church and state in the Constitution. The Thomas alliance on the Court acknowledged that the Constitution says no such thing. The notion that a wall exists between church and state is something other justices made up decades ago. The court finally reversed that as well. Tax dollars can go to religious organizations and prayers can be said on government property (even schools). However, the government still can’t endorse any religion over others – just as the Constitution actually says.

The justices also took a look at the Second Amendment and discovered a phrase that everyone else in the government seems to have missed – “shall not be infringed.” They even ruled that “shall not be infringed” actually means “shall not be infringed.” And the word infringe means the same thing now that it did when the Founders wrote it. We have a right to bear arms and the government has no right to arbitrarily interfere.

I know this is a big thing for legal scholars to wrap their heads around, but these rulings are completely consistent. If it’s not written in the Constitution, it’s not in the Constitution. If it is written in the Constitution, it’s actually there and has the force of law. Simple, no?

This Supreme Court's course correction has profound implications for an Article V convention. If we are actually able to amend the Constitution, the amendment will be held to mean what it actually says – because the Supreme Court just made the language of the Constitution relevant again. 

If an amendment is ratified requiring the government to operate to a balanced budget, this Court isn’t going to find a pandemic exception, a national security exception, or an exception because John Roberts thinks climate change is an existential threat. We just need to get 34 states on board, and write our proposed amendments carefully. Full speed ahead for a Convention of States.