{"id":1402,"date":"2011-12-19T10:40:16","date_gmt":"2011-12-19T08:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ofcourseimright.com\/?p=1402"},"modified":"2011-12-19T10:40:16","modified_gmt":"2011-12-19T08:40:16","slug":"gingrich-v-marbury-v-madison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/?p=1402","title":{"rendered":"Gingrich v. Marbury v. Madison"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Inscription<\/a>
Inscription on the Supreme Court Building<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A number of news articles<\/a> have appeared about how former Speaker of the House and current presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is claiming that he would ignore the court rulings that he doesn’t like.\u00a0 Nobody is above the law, but who gets to decide what the law is, and how it applies?\u00a0 According to Mr. Gingrich, he is.\u00a0 He wrote, \u201cShould the Supreme Court<\/a> issue decisions during a Gingrich administration that unconstitutionally empower federal judges with certain national security responsibilities, such decisions will be ignored\u201d.\u00a0 Mr. Gingrich contradicts law that is literally written in stone.<\/p>\n

\"William<\/a>
William Marbury<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1803, on his way out of town, President John Adams<\/a> and his party attempted to fill a number of key appointments.\u00a0 One of those was that of the Justice of the Peace for the District of Columbia.\u00a0 Having been nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, William Marbury<\/a> needed only receive his commission of office from the Secretary of State.\u00a0 He never got it, because his was one of a number of last minute commissions, and there simply wasn’t enough time to deliver it before Adams and his Secretary of State left office. \u00a0 When Thomas Jefferson<\/a> took office as President, and he appointed James Madison<\/a> as the new Secretary of State.\u00a0 When Marbury came calling for his commission of office, Madison refused to give it to him.\u00a0 Marbury sued, requesting what is known as a Writ of Mandamus<\/a> to compel the Secretary of State to disgorge the commission, as provided by the Judiciary Act of 1789<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a fascinating opinion, the Supreme Court of the United States said that they did not have the power to force Madison issue the writ.\u00a0 By articulating what power the Court didn’t have, John Marshall<\/a>‘s opinion of the Court in effect voided a portion of the act, and for the first time established that not only is the Constitution the highest law of the land, but that the Supreme Court is the final interpreter of the Constitution.\u00a0 Since the President’s power is defined in the Constitution, it therefore holds that the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of the President’s powers, as well.\u00a0 Prior to that, while some may have thought that this was so, in fact it hadn’t been decided.<\/p>\n

In the truest sense of the words, Marbury v. Madison is stare decisis<\/em><\/a>, or settled law.\u00a0 But every so many decades, even settled law can become unsettled.\u00a0 This has happened when social norms have changed, or more likely when interpretation of the Constitution has changed.\u00a0 But the change has always come from the Supreme Court itself, and not from Congress and the States, and never from the President.<\/p>\n

\"Newt<\/a>According to the Wall Street Journal<\/a>‘s article, Mr. Gingrich proposes a mechanism by which the other two branches of government could override the Supreme Court.\u00a0\u00a0 That’s dangerous.<\/p>\n

Contrary to Gingrich’s assertions, a reckless Court was the last thing on the founders’ minds.\u00a0 Through Article 3 Section 2<\/a> of the Constitution, Congress can limit the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.\u00a0 The States through their legislatures have the power to amend the Constitution.\u00a0 The President has no role in either interpreting the Constitution or changing it.\u00a0 This was no accident, as the founders had just fought a war against a king.<\/p>\n

This is not to say that the President has no influence.\u00a0 Although the Court is substantially insulated from day to day politics, the justices themselves take into account circumstances, as was clear in Korematsu v. United States<\/a>.\u00a0 In that case where the justices bent their will to the times, the results can only be said to be tragic.\u00a0 Interestingly, it seems that the U.S. Patriot Act <\/a>has not yet been tested by the Supreme Court.\u00a0 What separates America from dictatorship is our rule of law.\u00a0 Let that test happen at some point, and let’s not have another king overrule the Court.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A number of news articles have appeared about how former Speaker of the House and current presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is claiming that he would ignore the court rulings that he doesn’t like.\u00a0 Nobody is above the law, but who gets to decide what the law is, and how it applies?\u00a0 According to Mr. Gingrich, … Continue reading “Gingrich v. Marbury v. Madison”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":172,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[431,430,429,428,22,427],"class_list":["post-1402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-john-marshall","tag-korematsu","tag-marbury-v-madison","tag-newt-gingrich","tag-supreme-court","tag-the-constitution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/172"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1402"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1412,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1402\/revisions\/1412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}