All things considered, I'd be a _lot_ more comfortable with the God Squad if their Congressional representatives didn't keep submitting bills like the Constitution Restoration Act to Congress. What in the blue fuck is _wrong_ with people, my alleged district representative among them, who have attempted to make this bill a law _twice? (It was introduced last year by Zell Miller and Sam Brownback with Judge Roy Moore present, reached subcommittees and died there, and was reintroduced a few weeks ago.)
Text of <a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.1070:">House bill</a>, companion <a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:SN00520:@@@L&summ2=m&">Senate bill</a>
Summary:
<i>Constitution Restoration Act of 2005 - Amends the Federal judicial code to prohibit the U.S. Supreme Court and the Federal district courts from exercising jurisdiction over any matter in which relief is sought against an entity of Federal, State, or local government or an officer or agent of such government concerning that entity's, officer's, or agent's acknowledgment of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government.
Prohibits a court of the United States from relying upon any law, policy, or other action of a foreign state or international organization in interpreting and applying the Constitution, other than English constitutional and common law up to the time of adoption of the U.S. Constitution.
Provides that any Federal court decision relating to an issue removed from Federal jurisdiction by this Act is not binding precedent on State courts.
Provides that any Supreme Court justice or Federal court judge who exceeds the jurisdictional limitations of this Act shall be deemed to have committed an offense for which the justice or judge may be removed, and to have violated the standard of good behavior required of Article III judges by the Constitution.</i>
Let's break this down, shall we?
The second paragraph is a direct slap at O'Connor, Ginsburg, Kennedy and the others in the "liberal-moderate" wing of the Supreme Court, who have cited international law on several occasions as being worthy of examination and comparison when judging our own law. However, that's not the spookiest part.
Paragraph one: The Federal Courts, including the Supremes, would now have _zero_ jurisdiction over any case involving Christianity. Paragraph three removes past findings in these areas as binding precedents on state courts.
Roy Moore's Ten Commandments idol? Replaced. Sodomy laws? Back in black. Laws banning abortion or a variety of other things on the explicit grounds that "God says it's wrong?" Suddenly quite possible.
Imagine a state whose courts are packed with fundies. (If that sounds like a stretch, imagine Alabama.) Its state legislature passes some noxious and discriminatory bill on religious grounds. If the highest state appellate court upholds the bill, it's DONE, because it cannot be appealed to and overturned by ANY federal court.
Extra incentive for that? Paragraph four. If a judge violates this new jurisdiction and tries to overturn some blatantly unconstitutional law that's religion-themed, it's considered an offense worthy of impeachment and removal from the bench.
Fucked if I even want to _think about_ driving through the South if this bill somehow passes.
The political ju-jitsu involved is both clever and dangerous. Goes something like this:
* Congress: Hey! Supreme Court! You now have no jurisdiction over God-related laws. We can put up the Commandments, enshrine Old Testament law into American law, and do anything we want in the name of God. Nyahh.
* Supremes: Fuck THAT. That's unconstitutional.
* Congress: Ah, but we've removed your ability to judge that to be unconstitutional, using Article III of the Constitution as our basis. Better yet, if you _try_ to rule that way anyway, we can impeach any of you who do so.
* Supremes: ... Shit.
CAN Congress pass a law that specifically exempts itself, much less an entire class of laws, from federal court jurisdiction and Constitutional scrutiny without amending the Constitution itself? Do they have the independent authority via Article III to do this? It's a Constitutional clusterfuck waiting to happen that'd make Watergate look like a parking ticket hearing.
Now, is this likely to pass or even reach the floor for full consideration? No. It'd be a very open admission of "We want theocracy" by the hard right, and thus would have its share of Republican defectors. It's been submitted once before, and went nowhere. Many lawmakers have a habit of submitting bills that are more symbolic than serious. I'm not losing too much sleep over the possibility.
But when the House Majority Leader has come right out and declared war on the judicial branch, he's under severe scrutiny and may be on the way out, and there's a bill in the House and Senate _already_ that would clamp down severely upon the "activist judiciary" who are "tyrannizing" the country (a country whose former president he attempted to impeach, citing "He holds the wrong Biblical worldview" as one of the justifications)... well... I itch.
Just a bit.