Ted Cruz wants to strip the Supreme Court of jurisdiction on gay marriage

Was reading about this today, and thinking how sad it is that when you can't win on an issue in terms of public opinion, and you also can't win in the courts, you're reduced to advocating something like this that would attempt to remove a specific issue out of the general legal process.

Lame.

 

Can we get some links?

 

Google it and you probably can. I read the story somewhere earlier today, but can't remember where. Let me do a Google search....

 

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2015/04/cruz-eight-texas-reps-join-brief-urging-justices-to-let-states-decide-fate-of-gay-marriage.html/

Having read the Maddow article linked to below, my position has changed. I was misunderstanding this to be a 14th amendment issue. It is actually a court-stripping issue. I'm strongly against this.

 

Link to Maddow's blog. The analysis there is partly wrong, as usual, but you will get some facts:

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/cruz-touts-radical-court-stripping-scheme

Basically proposing an exercise of Art. III power.

 

@Justin Rocket it raises interesting legal questions. The Constitution gives Congress the power to make regulations and exceptions to the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction (though not its original jurisdiction). If that happened, the appeals courts in the various circuits would have the last word for that circuit, I suppose. Any legislative action by Congress in this regard would certainly be challenged.

 

I'm curious about the details here. Maddow is one of the more intellectual talking heads out there.

 

Maddow is smart but she's almost always biased. The article says things like this undermines separation of powers, isn't constitutional conservatism, etc.

Separation of powers hinges in part on checks and balances. I don't think checks and balances, therefore, undermine separation of powers - they're essential to it. This language was put in the Constitution, and it seems pretty clear this is a legislative check on the judiciary. There's no other way to read it. It is one of many checks and balances the three branches of the federal government have against one another.

As for Constitutional conservatism - that's exactly what it is. Constitutional conservatism is a very textualist approach to the Constitution, and the plain text of the Constitution clearly recites that Congress has this power, so it is hard to argue that utilizing it is somehow contrary to Constitutional conservatism.

Of course, it would be interesting if it were actually used. When the Constitution was written, the Supreme Court was not the final arbiter of what was Constitutional as between the various branches. That came in the early 1800s in the case of Marbury v. Madison (scant few years later, but still later). Without Marbury v. Madison you can see where there might be more separation of authority on Constitutional issues, and then this provision of the Constitution whereby the Congress regulates the appellate jurisdiction of SCOTUS makes more sense. After 212 years or so post-Marbury it doesn't seem to make much sense.

At the time of the Founding, the the framers were not interested in a powerful federal government. This goes right along with the idea the Bill of Rights didn't initially apply to the States, that Senators were appointed by State legislatures, that Congressional power through the commerce clause was very limited, and so on and so forth.

Maddow's view, ultimately, is biased and can't be taken at face value for that reason. But when I read Maddow I read her more or less like I would were I to read something by Bill O'Reilly (which I don't). You know what you're going to get, but as long as you know it you can pull pertinent information out of the article.

 

This is what I hate about jackass Democrats and Republicans. They whine until the Federal government's power is expanded (such as with DOMA) and then, when the other party gains control, they whine that the expansion of power they wanted is now in the hands of the opposition. I'd call it "dishonorable", but they don't care about honor and it'd just be a waste of breath.

 

DOMA hypocrisy, good point. Were there many Democrats for DOMA who are now for Cruz's position? Seems like a weak case for an example of how Progressives and TEA Partiers/far right wingers are the same.

 

Are you asking about Democrats who believe in defining marriage at the federal level? I'm not seeing how that contradicts the existence of the "Republicrat" party.

 

You gave an example of DOMA supporters now claiming states rights but you painted Democrats with this Republican brush.

But never mind, now I see you were just saying, "for example".