supports court-packin<\/a>g.\u00a0 That’s really embarrassing for a Harvard law professor.\u00a0 Even a night-school wonder like me, knows better.\u00a0<\/p>The problem with the Supreme Court is not that it’s too small. The court is too large now, to get things done expeditiously and correctly: too many egos to sooth, too many agendas to accommodate, too many compromises requiring hair-splitting decisions.<\/p>
The problem is not that the court is full of justices eager to overturn precedent.\u00a0 If a case was wrongly decided, it should be overturned in the interest of justice. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>
The problem is not that the court veers away from widely held public opinion.\u00a0 Pandering to public opinion is Congress’ job.\u00a0 And it’s mostly on volatile social issues where the Court has caused the worst problems.<\/p>
The problem is Marbury v. Madison, a case decided fewer than 20 years after the Constitution was adopted.\u00a0 That’s the case in which the Supreme Court gave itself the power to throw out legislation the Court felt was incompatible with the Constitution.\u00a0 The court’s power-grab flatly contradicts the entire premise of a “enumerated powers” Constitution.\u00a0 That decision set up the Court to make historically and horrifically bad law:\u00a0 Dred Scott (struck down the Missouri Compromise which allowed slavery to spread to more states), Plessy v. Fergussn (upheld racial segregation); Korematsu (upheld concentration camps for American citizens); Roe v. Wade (upheld abortion on demand); Obergefell v. Hodges (struck down gay marriage laws nationwide).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>
Adding more justices to a run-away court won’t rein it in from ruling on social issues.\u00a0 A constitutional amendment is required.\u00a0 And if that doesn’t curb their enthusiasm, perhaps removal from office?\u00a0 A Harvard law professor should understand that.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>
Joe Doakes<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Bring on the mid-terms. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: Senator Elizabeth Warren\u00a0supports court-packing.\u00a0 That’s really embarrassing for a Harvard law professor.\u00a0 Even a night-school wonder like me, knows better.\u00a0 The problem with the Supreme Court is not that it’s too small. The court is too large now, to get things done expeditiously and correctly: too many egos to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,51,82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-democrats","category-liberal-tyranny","category-scotus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80332"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80336,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80332\/revisions\/80336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}