Ted Stewart - Supreme Power: 7 Pivotal Supreme Court Decisions That Had a Major Impact on America

Contents

Foreword

U.S. Congressman
chris stewart

Not long ago I found myself in Egypt for a few days. It was a busy trip and somewhat discouraging as I looked at the challenges facing this great nation, which has been a key U.S. ally for many years. The struggles that the Egyptian people were facing were enormous. Yet they seemed committed to finding a way to bring stability and prosperity to a country that is as rich in history as any in the world. I hoped they would be successful. It seemed that they deserved it.

As we drove through Cairo on the way to the airport, I stared out on what looked to be a dying city. From the elevated freeway, I could see the rooftops of the cement and wood apartments where garbage had been piled up because there was no more refuse collection going on. Passing by Tarik Square, I saw the burned-out remains of a government high-rise that had been damaged by gunfire, then set on fire by the fighting that had brought millions of protestors into the streets. The highway was packed with clanking taxies, motorcycles with three and four people holding on, rusty trucks, bikes, and occasional donkeys. I thought back on my interactions with the people. The Egyptians I had associated with were always friendly and optimistic, but they exuded a sense of realism as well. They had a challenge in rebuilding their country, and they knew that difficult days lie ahead.

An hour later, I found myself in the airport lounge waiting for the flight that would take me back home. Looking up, I saw a familiar face: a retired federal judge I had come to know in Washington, D.C. He sat down, and we started talking. Why are you here? I asked.

He had an interesting answer. And one that resonated with the same message that can be found in this book. More on that later.

As a U.S. Congressman, I have witnessed the executive branch suck up enormous power from the Congress. This is extremely concerning, for it upsets the delicate balance that our Founding Fathers intended between the three branches of government, leaving our President, a single individual, with far too much power and the people with less ability to govern themselves. But, as Ted Stewart points out in this book, we have also witnessed another great transfer of power away from the people. This transfer has moved power away from the Congress, away from the executive, even, and placed it within the chambers of the Supreme Court.

As the book relates, in 1922, a Supreme Court Justice was nominated by President Warren G. Harding and unanimously approved by the Senate on the same day. I actually laughed when I read this. It would be unimaginable today. And the reason is very simple: the Supreme Court has become so powerful, so omniscient, so authoritative and ever-present in our lives, that those nine Justices have become, in many ways, the most powerful individuals in the country. That being the case, is it any wonder that the opportunity to change the Courtwhich by extension would shift that balance of power within our nationwould come with enormous struggle and controversy?

Congressmen and Senators will come and go. They are constantly checked by the people in elections. Presidents must move on after no more than eight years. After they leave office, they often look back to see many of their priorities reversed or redirected by the next administration. But Supreme Court Justices enjoy a lifetime appointment, leaving them completely insulated from the will of the people. Their rulings cannot be challenged. They are very rarely reversed, and then only by a subsequent Supreme Court ruling. There is no way to circumvent them or appeal their decisions to a higher authority.

They have come to rule over us and every aspect of our lives. As the late great Judge Antonin Scalia wrote, and as is quoted in this book, It is not of special importance to me what the law says about marriage. It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Todays decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court.... This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves ( Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S.Ct. 2584, 2598 [2015]).

I believe that such a power is one that must be checked.

Back in Cairo, I listened as the retired judge explained how he had been in Egypt to train Egyptian judiciary officials on how to set up and maintain a proper judiciary system.

Its important work, I offered.

You have no idea, he replied. If they dont have a proper judicial system, they have no hope of establishing a functioning government. They have no hope of freedom. No hope of stability. No hope of any future.

As he talked, I couldnt help but think that the same thing was true of my own government. It also explains why this book is so important.

The choice we have is very simple: divested power resting with the people, or, as the title of the book says, Supreme Power within the Court.

Introduction

We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is.

Charles Evans Hughes, then governor of New York and later Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court

In 1831, a young Frenchman named Alexis de Tocqueville came to the United States to study the American experiment in democracy, then in its infancy. Although his visit lasted only nine months, his powers of observation were so formidable that he was able to write what many consider the best book ever written about our system of government, Democracy in America, the first volume of which appeared in 1835. In that book he stated, There is almost no political question in the United States that is not resolved sooner or later into a judicial question. What was observably true to a visitor in the first half of the nineteenth century is unquestionably true to most Americans in the first half of the twenty-first century.

Presuming most, if not all, political questions become judicial questions, it makes sense to ask, Who gets to decide the issues? Or, more precisely, Who gets the final word? The honest answer is, The Supreme Court of the United States.

Why is that so? Why are nine unelected men and women in fact the final deciders?

A Supreme Court Justice once answered that question, We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final. This comment smacks of cynicism, but it is the candid truth and cannot be ignored. The Supreme Court is not unfailing because they are always right. In fact, the quoted Justice also acknowledged that if Supreme Court decisions were subject to further review by another group of judges, they would likely be reversed on occasion. But the fact isthere is no other court!

A decision by the Supreme Court interpreting the Constitution of the United States cannot be reversed except by an amendment to the Constitution or by a subsequent Supreme Court decision. Any Supreme Court interpretation of legislation passed by Congress cannot be undone except by changing the law or having the Supreme Court later change its mind. This is because in all such matters, the word of the United States Supreme Court is final. Was this truly what the Founders of our country envisioned?

The Founders View

Above all else, those who founded this nation despised and feared tyranny. The tyranny that they dreaded can be explained by a simple, yet profound, formula: