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Maybe, if we were a democracy and not a republic. We don't go for mob rule. The Constitution doesn't allow for that sort of meddling by one branch against another. If judges are committing crimal acts, impeach them, otherwise hands off. I'm surprised that this could be coming from some who usually hold the Constitution sacrosanct!
You are absolutely correct that we are not a “democracy”. We are a constitutionally limited “Republican Form of Government” guaranteed by Article 4, Section 4 of the Constitution. However, our Constitution does in fact allow Congress to subpoena witnesses and have them testify under oath. This authority is recognized under Congress’ “legislative powers” (Article 1, Section 1) and to have witnesses to provide necessary information that will assist committees in preparing legislation. In the case of Mc-Grain v. Daugherty (1927) the Supreme Court recognized that Congress could even subpoena private citizens to testify. The Court noted that since not everyone would volunteer needed information, “some means of compulsion are essential to obtain what is needed.”.
What is irrefutable is, our courts are not only ignoring the fundamental rules of constitutional law in handing down their opinions, but are likewise ignoring the documented “legislative intent” of our Constitution and using their office of public trust to impose their personal whims and fancies as being within the four corners of our Constitution. Justices who have a history of ignoring the fundamental rules of constitutional law when arriving at their opinions and rendering opinions which are not in harmony with the legislative intent of our Constitution must be dealt with or our Constitution become a meaningless piece of paper. The prescribed manner in our Constitution is impeachment, and so, I see nothing wrong with subpoenaing a judge or Justice before a Congressional oversight committee to explain how his/her opinion did follow (1) the fundamental rules of constitutional law, and (2) that the opinion is in harmony with the legislative intent of our Constitution, thus avoiding articles of impeachment being draw up.
However, if Gingrich proposes to go beyond these limits, that would be an entirely different matter.
Bottom line is, we need to start punishing judges and Justices who are ignoring the fundamental rules of constitutional law and our Constitution’s legislative intent.
JWK
"The Constitution is the act of the people, speaking in their original character, and defining the permanent conditions of the social alliance; and there can be no doubt on the point with us, that every act of the legislative power contrary to the true intent and meaning of the Constitution, is absolutely null and void. ___ Chancellor James Kent, in his Commentaries on American Law (1858)
In the end all this boils down to is you want judges to be harrassed when they make rulings you don't like.
Why would you make such a charge when I want nothing more than what our Constitution stipulates?
(1) This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.,
(2) judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution
(3) The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour
(4) The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.
At the top of the thread, which has since been deleted but can be found HERE, I gave a specific example in which Justice Stevens when writing the majority opinion in Kelo v. City of New London 545 U.S. 469 (2005), ignored (1), a fundamental rule of constitutional law requiring words in our Constitution to be understood as they were when the Constitution was adopted, and (2), ignored enforcing the legislative intent under which the Fifth Amendment was adopted as applied to rights associated with property ownership.
My position has nothing to do with wanting “judges to be harrassed when they make rulings I don't like, but rather, it is to give an opportunity to a judge or Justice, prior to impeachment, to establish his/her opinion is in harmony with fundamental rules of constitutional law and in harmony with the documented legislative intent of our Constitution.
Why do you charge me with wanting to harass judges when my object is wanting nothing more than what our Constitution stipulates in clear language?
JWK
Those who reject abiding by the intentions and beliefs under which our Constitution was agree to, as those intentions and beliefs may be documented from historical records, wish to remove the anchor and rudder of our constitutional system so they may then be free to “interpret” the Constitution to mean whatever they wish it to mean.
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