Cure Candy
Woah that is umm wow I am sorry but you cant ignore the checks and balances like that... I dont think you could get away with it in recent years without some major crap.
edited 19th Jan '12 5:03:21 AM by Raso
Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!
Prince of Dorne
Jackson did. It's very much possible, which seems like a flaw in the system to me...
Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic
There is a reason why power is divided in goverments. Moment you start claiming power, you start road to the dictatorship. It also sets dangerous situation. What power would SCOTUS have is presidents could just ignore it if it doesn't fit for them?
The Mod with the Migraine
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Andrew Jackson was also president two centuries ago, when the country was significantly smaller in population, size, and number of states, at a time when communication and news took weeks to travel to the rest of the country, let alone to foreign nations. His situation is not really comparable to a 21st century presidency*.
edited 19th Jan '12 5:12:07 AM by BlueNinja0
That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw
Prince of Dorne
That's the point. It was deplorable, yet it happens. And the basic situation that if it came to such a "conflict" the SCOTUS would have absolutely no means at all to enforce its rulings - that situation is still persisting.
The Executive wannabe wishes to how power over the Judicery.
Such notions is undemocratic! The Executive, Judicery and Legisature are kept seperate to avoid (dictatoral levels) of abuse of power.
I’m a lumberjack and I’m ok. I sleep all night and work all day.
Happy New Year!
arguably isn't the supreme court the one that is ignoring the balance of power by overrule the wishes of elected public representatives?
hashtagsarestupid
Prince of Dorne
No. That's its job.
Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic
When the wishes of elected representatives violate the Constitution, then it's the SCOTUS's job to overrule them.
IIUC, it's counterbalanced by other parts of the government having the power to amend the constitution?
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."
Cure Candy
As well as actually vote to place people on the court in the first place.
The West Wing does a good job showing stuff for this.
edited 19th Jan '12 7:09:55 AM by Raso
Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!
Happy New Year!
When the wishes of elected representatives violate the Constitution, then it's the SCOTUS's job to overrule them.
The only problem is that is that the Supreme Court is the one who gets to the decide what the Constitution means the first place.
hashtagsarestupid
Lost in Space
You've just described the Supreme Court's actual function. Your "problem" is the reason it exists in the first place.
edited 19th Jan '12 7:15:48 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Happy New Year!
Then how is America a democracy then? If your elected government is subject whims of a few judges and their personal interpretation of a particular document?
hashtagsarestupid
Zzzzzzzzzz
It's not the "whims" of the judges.
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
No longer a forum herald
Well, it could be the whims of the judges for all we know, but I highly doubt that. The real point is that the U.S. is not a democracy, and was never intended to be a democracy. It's a sadly common misconception (one that far too many high school textbooks like to perpetuate).
Back on topic, Gingrich just shot himself in the foot here. A lot of Republicans tend to be strict Constitutionalists (or at least claim to be), and poof, he just cut their vote out.
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
Diagonalizing The Matrix
If you distrust the judges, it's undemocratic overruling, and if you do trust them, it's a necessary balance for the system to hold together. It's one of those optical illusions which appear different depending on whether you look at them from the right or from the left.
edited 19th Jan '12 7:47:33 AM by TripleElation
Pretentious quote || In-joke from fandom you've never heard of || Shameless self-promotion || Something weird you'll habituate to
Lost in Space
The irony, Totemic Hero, is that Gingrich earns the respect of a great many so-called constructionists who abjectly despise "liberal activism" in the judiciary. It's a common bugaboo of the Right, and the hypocrisy is utterly lost on them.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
Then how is America a democracy then? If your elected government is subject whims of a few judges and their personal interpretation of a particular document?
Checks and balances. To massively oversimplify, President beats Supreme Court, Supreme Court beats Congress, Congress beats President. It's like Rock-Paper-Scissors.
What's precedent ever done for us?
Or atlast how it should be. Most democratic goverments (USA is democratic country, even if the political structure is not called "democracy". Democracy here means the idea, not the system.) Separation of powers is three part. Idea is to make so that two can overule third, incase the third tries to overpower two.
However, this idea would basicly mean that SCOTUS would have nothing and President would become SCOTUS, or Supreme Judge Of The United States, SJOTUS.
Zzzzzzzzzz
That's really a pretty good way of putting it, but it is a bit too oversimplified.
Congress can pass any bill they want, with enough votes, but the President has to sign it and the Supreme Court can say "Oh, hell no, that's unconstitutional, you can't do that that way."
The President can veto a bill passed by the Congress, but the Congress can override the veto if thy want to badly enough.
The Supreme Court can rule that a bill or regulation is unconstitutional and can't be enforced, but the Congress can then rewrite it and re-pass it to make changes to whatever the Court said was wrong. 'And The Supreme Court can only rule on the constitionality of laws. They can't simply overturn one because they don't like it. Also, the President nominates the SC Justices, but the Congress has to approve them.
There's no one branch that can't be checked by either one of the others or both of the others working together. The President can be overruled. The Congress can be overruled. The Supreme Court can't be overruled, but they can be worked around, and they're severely limited in when and on what they can act.
edited 19th Jan '12 8:34:48 AM by Madrugada
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
Lost in Space
You forgot to mention that Congress can impeach the President and/or the Supreme Court Justices.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC!
My understanding is that SC justices are nominated for life. Anyone care to explain what's the deal with that? (I've a natural aversion to life-long nominations for political positions.)
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
No longer a forum herald
Indeed, they can serve for life, although they are allowed to step down of their own choice. Historically, this happens as often as not, mainly due to health issues (these people tend to be fairly old when selected).
edited 19th Jan '12 9:15:38 AM by TotemicHero
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
This thread is inspired by an article about Gingrich spouting off
, but take the candidate stuff to the appropriate thread for it.
The Republican contender told a forum of anti-abortion activists ahead of South Carolina's primary election that as president he would ignore supreme court rulings he regards as legally flawed. He implied that would also extend to the 1973 decision, Roe vs Wade, legalising abortion.
"If the court makes a fundamentally wrong decision, the president can in fact ignore it," said Gingrich to cheers.
The Republican contender, who has made no secret of his disdain for the judiciary, said that as president he would expect to have repeated showdowns with the supreme court. He said the court would lose because it is the least powerful and least accountable arm of government.
Gingrich said the first confrontation would be over its historic ruling, known as the Boumediene decision, that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantánamo Bay have the right to challenge their detention in US courts.
"I fully expect as president that there will be several occasions when we will collide. The first one, which is actually foreign policy, the Boumediene decision which extends American legal rights to enemy combatants on the battlefield is such an outrageous extension of the court in to the commander in chief's role.
"I will issue an instruction on the opening day, first day I'm sworn in, I will issue an executive order to the national security apparatus that it will not enforce Boumediene and it will regard it as null and void because it is an absurd extension of the supreme court in to the commander in chief's (authority)."
Gingrich has said before that he regards the president as above the court when the two branches have fundamentally differing views but he went further in committing himself to setting up a constitutional crisis on his first day in office.
The Republican candidate cited what he said were precedents, including Abraham Lincoln's refusal to accept the Dred Scott decision denying that former slaves were citizens.
Gingrich's interpretations have previously been met with disdain. President George W Bush's attorney general, Michael Mukasey, has said that a president selectively ignoring supreme court decisions would turn the US in to a banana republic.
Essentially, this is a prospective President vowing to completely ignore 1/3 of the government and the highest court in the land over a disagreement of principles. Should such a situation pass, how much support would the President receive from the American public as a whole? How would the courts, especially SCOTUS, react to such a direct contradiction to their power? Would Congress vote to impeach a leader, or support them? How would the international community react to this?
Some comments I've seen on other websites include such gems as "Nixon would approve, the President above the law", and referring to the candidate as "El Presidente"*. This gives me some slim hope that whoever is elected will not be stupid enough to try a stunt like this.
That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw