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{"id":5691,"date":"2002-02-25T13:13:00","date_gmt":"2002-02-25T13:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2002\/02\/5691\/"},"modified":"2002-02-25T13:13:00","modified_gmt":"2002-02-25T13:13:00","slug":"5691","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2002\/02\/5691.html","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

TAKING THE CONSTITUTION AWAY FROM THE COURTS<\/a><\/b>: For some bizarre reason, Andrew Sullivan seems to think that Justices Rehnquist, Breyer et al. wrote the Constitution. <\/p>\n

Check it out (the numbers are mine): \u201cWhile I\u2019m at it, I might as well address the issue many of you have emailed me about. That\u2019s the notion that it somehow adds to public cynicism if the Congress passes a law that might well turn out to be unconstitutional in parts. I\u2019m sorry, but I don\u2019t quite buy this. The argument might work if the Congress knew as a metaphysical certainty that parts of the bill would be struck down by the Court. (problem #1) But metaphysical certainty doesn\u2019t exist in politics. And in cases like these, it\u2019s also legitimate for the Congress to say what it wants to happen, but passing it off to the other branch to decide on the constitutional issues. (#2) That sounds to me like a civics lesson, not an exercise in cynicism. The argument is particularly odd coming from some conservative quarters, who are constantly urging the passage of, say, abortion restrictions that might well not pass the current Court. I think they\u2019re right to do so (#3); and CFR, even when parts of it may be constitutionally wobbly, should be held to the same standards.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

#1: Whether a bill is Constitutional has very little to do with whether it\u2019s upheld or struck down by the Court. The Court has ruled in ways that warp the Constitution any number of times. Or are we to understand that Dred Scott<\/i> was a good use of interpretive power?<\/p>\n

#2: What if you think the bill is unconstitutional, but you don\u2019t trust the Court to strike it down? What if you think the bill is Constitutional, but you think the Court will strike it down? What if you think part of Congress\u2019s job is to avoid passing unconstitutional laws, regardless of whether the Court can be trusted to uphold the Constitution?<\/p>\n

#3: Right, pro-life types keep trying to get this legislation passed, because they believe that the Court\u2019s rulings in the past have incorrectly interpreted the Constitution. If they truly believed that Roe v. Wade<\/i> was an accurate interpretation of the Constitution, they should not try to get unconstitutional laws passed.<\/p>\n

I just don\u2019t get this post of his at all.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, his take on Frank Rich\u2019s creepy article<\/a> on David Brock\u2019s new book<\/a> is great: \u201cWhat\u2019s really, er, rich is that, under the guise of sounding horrified by muck-raking, Rich goes at it with gusto, citing, among other things, Brock\u2019s lurid accounts of dens of closeted homosexual Washingtonians. I have to say I\u2019ve lived here for more than a decade, know a lot of gay men and a lot of Republicans and have never come across anything even faintly like this. It sounds fun, though.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"