There's good news for all you conservative folks who feel that the Supreme Court has consistently ruled on the side of tree-hugging, liberal, activist, baby-killing, pot-smoking hippie freaks (and that's just the Kennedys). Rep. Ron Lewis of Kentucky introduced H.R. 3920 on March 9 "to allow Congress to reverse the judgments of the United States Supreme Court." The bill would allow Congress to overrule a Supreme Court decision made on an Act of Congress. The procedure would be the same as the procedure for overriding a presidential veto (2/3 of each house of Congress would have to pass the measure).

Wow. Well, maybe not "wow." As William F. Buckley would say, the Supreme Court's ability to override Acts of Congress is "evidentiary, not substantive." This means that the doctrine of judicial review, first articulated by Chief Justice Marshall in Marbury v. Madison, was interpreted to exist; it is not explicitly mentioned in the Consitution that the Supreme Court has such a power. Marshall reasoned that if an Act of Congress violated the Constitution, then it was the Constitution that should come out on top. Otherwise, he said, the Consitution is not a supreme, transcendent set of laws; it's just a regular, ordinary, everyday set of laws. Who, then, would uphold the supremacy of the Constitution? The Supreme Court, apparently, since its job is to arbitrate the dispute between a federal law and the Constitution.

Let me take that back. Definitely "wow." Judicial review is the only check that the Supreme Court has on Congress, and so it should be. Perhaps lower courts frustrate Congress by declaring certain things unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court needs that power. More often than not, the Supreme Court is correct in its decision-making. Its Justices are probably the most objective people in the country. They are not elected, so they have no constituency to pander to. They are not elected, so they have no need to play to a particular group or a party. They are the only people in the federal government whose sole job is to uphold the principles of the Constitution; they spend no time on trying to get re-elected, because they don't have to (by contrast, as much as 75% of a Congressman's time can be spent on ensuring that he'll be reelected). I would hate to see the judicial branch of government drawn into the mire of ugly, ad hominem partisan politics in which Congress exists now.