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Constitution

Building A Firewall Around A Radical Supreme Court

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has become a corrupt body. It is dismembering the most fundamental principles of our Constitution and Declaration of Independence. SCOTUS appears to be fixed upon a course to transform the United States into a monarchy of kings and courtiers, under a national evangelical church.

SCOTUS' five conservative members range from merely being disconnected from reality (Roberts) to anti-regulatory/pro-corporate hacks (Gorsuch) to evangelical warriors (Barrett) to the suspect corrupt (Kavanaugh) to right wing nationalists (Alito) to the outright corrupt (Thomas).

Recent decisions of SCOTUS risk displacing Dred Scott v. Sandford (60 US 393 (1857)) as the worst decision in US history:

In addition substantial questions have been raised regarding significant ethical lapses, under- (or non-) reported gifts (that have every appearance of lightly veiled bribes) from interested parties with present or future cases before the court, and conflicts of interest through spouses who have direct interests in cases presently or likely to come before the court.

SCOTUS has declared itself as primus inter pares - first among equals - of the three formerly equal branches of our Federal government. In the recent Fischer v. United States (603 US _ (2024)) SCOTUS declared the judicial branch, with SCOTUS at its head, as having the power to discard and reinterpret decisions of the legislative and executive branches. (This new power to reinterpret is a massive extension of the well accepted power of our courts to determine whether legislative and executive acts are within the Constitution.)

It is clear that the Supreme Court of the United States has run off the rails ideologically and ethically. SCOTUS has ejected our Presidential and Congressional pilots, locked the citizens of the United States out of the cockpit, and is flying our country straight into national catastrophe.

So what can we do about it?

This note suggests a radical, revolutionary answer to what is a radical, revolutionary problem.

That answer is to partially neuter SCOTUS.

The proposals made here require no changes to the existing Constitution. This proposal is entirely within the existing powers of Congress and the President.

Do We Need Rubber Rooms for Federal Judges? Two Plans To Reduce The Long Tailed Impact of Trump Judicial Appointees

Permanent URL: https://www.cavebear.com/cavebear-blog/rubber-rooms/
Revised: September 22, 2020

Ruth Bader Ginsburg died last Friday.

Already, many are talking about adding new justices to the Supreme Court to overcome the political imbalance that is likely to occur when a new Justice is confirmed to fill her now vacant seat.

However, this article is not about the Supreme Court or the addition of new Justices.

Instead, I want to address two subordinate Federal courts — our system of District and Circuit (appellate) courts.

The judges on these courts are generally referred to as “Article III” judges to distinguish them from judges on Federal regulatory and administrative courts. Article III judges “hold their offices during good behaviour”. This effectively means they have lifetime appointments.

The membership of the Supreme Court gets most of our attention. Yet, during the 2017-2021 presidential term those lower courts have been packed with more than 200 questionable or highly biased appointees.

The District Courts handle all Federal trials. The Circuit courts handle all appeals aside from the tiny portion that is taken up by the Supreme Court.

The impact of the last four years of Federal judicial appointments is significant, amounting to 25% of all Article III judges.

And because those judges have lifetime appointments that impact could continue for years. Generations of new and existing voters could find their majority views and votes blocked and nullified by judicial decisions made by those judges.

How do we deal with this?

While the problem might seem hopeless, there are things we can do.

Our New Reconstruction: Constraining The Growth of Presidential Powers

Permanent URL: https://www.cavebear.com/cavebear-blog/executive-amendment/
Revised: September 23, 2020

The Trump presidency has been a Constitutional disaster for the United States. Presidential power, which already had been growing at an alarming rate in prior administrations, has exploded to dictatorial levels under Trump.

It is not reasonable to expect that future presidents will easily reject these powers. Even if not used by the next or subsequent presidents these powers will retain their potency and be available to be resurrected and used.

Many of these new claims to executive power exclude, in practical reality if not in academic theory, the authority of Congress, the Courts, or the people of the United States to step in to impose corrections or limitations.

Our system of Separation of Powers has been weakened. Madison’s notion, as expressed in the Federalist Papers (Number 51), that “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition”, is in need of life support.

Because the basic allocation of authority in the United States comes from our Constitution it is beyond the power of Congress, the courts, or the States either individually or in concert, to do more than apply cosmetic remedies.

As a consequence we are faced with an exigent need to update our US Constitution with one or more amendments that define the limits of executive authority and create and enhance the balancing powers vested in the other branches of government and the citizenry.

In the years just after the Civil War, Congress and the States created three new Constitutional amendments, along with a body of supporting legislation. These Amendments and laws reshaped our country in ways that remain important, more than 150 years later.

It is time to do so again.

Our nation is in need of New Reconstruction.

Redressing the Distortion of Elections and Political Speech by Corporations

(This was originally posted on Oct 14, 2011.)

Proposed Amendment to the United States Constitution To Redress the Increasing Distortion of Elections and Political Speech by Corporations and Other Aggregate Forms

Proposed Text

Corporate and other aggregate forms of organization are neither Persons nor Citizens under this Constitution and shall have neither protections, rights, nor legal standing under this Constitution

This Amendment shall not be construed to deny or disparage the power of Congress or the Several States to enact legislation that defines rights, powers, limitations, liabilities, and standing of such corporate and other aggregate forms of organization