Judicial Injudiciousness, Not a Problem

The present battle in the Senate and in the Media over the appointment of judges misses the point. While everyone is planning and plotting strategies to get the kind of judge they want into the Judiciary System for eventual appointment to the Supreme Court, no one is asking the question that should be asked, "Why should unelected people so important to a representative republic?"

The answer is, of course, they should not. One of the fundamental rights of any group of people is to choose the persons who have power over them. Judges not only enforce the law, they leave their thumbprint upon the law just as thoroughly as any legislator when they interpet it. The Founding Fathers understood this and constructed our government so that all persons in a position of power would have to answer, ultimately, to the voters. The method they prescribed to make judges answer to the voters was to give the Congress the right to make and dissolve lower courts, limit juridstiction of all courts, and make exceptions and regulations for all courts. This is fully laid out in Article III of the Constitution. In addition Congress was given the power of impeachment which applies to judges who do not follow the limits and regluations set for them by the Congress.

The Independent Judiciary is a myth. It serves, just like all other branches of government, at the behest and sufferance of the voters. The Congress of the United States, elected by the voters, is the eight hundred pound gorilla in this equation. Just because the Democrat and Republican Congress failed to exercise their rights for 60 years does not mean they have lost that right forever. The solution to the problem of judicial injudiciousness is for Congress to rein back over-reaching judges. They have the power, now they have to summon up the guts to use it. If they do not, they will be replaced.