By Ed Thomas
(AgapePress) - One of America’s leading grassroots activists says Congress must accept the responsibility of curbing a runaway judiciary, and she suggests the legislators start by applying the powers they were given to do so in the Constitution of the United States.
In her new book, The Supremacists: The Tyranny of Judges and How to Stop It (Spence, 2004), Phyllis Schlafly says Article III of the Constitution is the answer to judicial activism. She says that is because Article III can help Congress take away federal judges’ power to legislate from the bench.
Schlafly, founder of Eagle Forum, says a whole list of issues that have been controversially ruled can be put out of the reach of the federal bench. "The first method, if we want to do this," she notes, "is to withdraw jurisdiction from the federal courts over the Pledge of Allegiance, the Ten Commandments, the definition of marriage, and the Boy Scouts, because we don’t trust what they’re doing in those areas."
Another part of the strategy the conservative activist recommends is something she calls "starving" the courts; that is, limiting their power by limiting their money. "Now, we can’t cut the salaries of the judges," she explains, "but we certainly can cut their budgets and cut off some of these perks, like traveling to foreign conferences where they get a lot of bad ideas about foreign law."
Schlafly says U.S. legislators need to realize that it is their job to provide a check and balance to the power of the judiciary, and they must act to restore the proper balance to America’s system of government. And, she adds, the federal legislature "has every right and power to do this under Article III of the Constitution. There’s nothing new about it. Congress has limited jurisdiction dozens of times in our history."
The author and head of Eagle Forum, who is also a constitutional lawyer, spells out what she calls a "battle plan for action" in her new book. Schlafly hopes The Supremacists will help pass the urgent word to the America’s leaders in Congress that it is time they used their constitutional powers to curb activist judges.
