Beyond the Pale

Strip This Bill

This article is so clear and concise I'm going to take the highly unusual step of quoting the whole thing verbatim:

THE HOUSE is scheduled today to take up the Republican leadership's latest attack on the federal courts. In July the House passed a bill to strip the courts of the power to hear challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 law that ensures that states do not have to recognize gay marriages performed in other states. (The Senate has yet to consider that power-stripping measure.) Today the House may vote on a bill to prevent the courts from ruling on challenges to the Pledge of Allegiance. Never mind that this year the Supreme Court overturned the one major lower-court opinion that had struck down the pledge and that there is no reason to think the court is having second thoughts. As far as House proponents are concerned, judges should never again even be able to consider whether the words "under God" are constitutional in the pledge.

How much power Congress has to block judicial consideration of the constitutionality of its laws remains, somewhat surprisingly, an open question--because Congress wisely has chosen not to test the question. It has, rather, accepted judicial review--the idea that the courts can strike down legislative enactments that offend the Constitution--as integral to the system of checks and balances. So while legislators have sometimes been tempted to yank controversial matters from the court's jurisdiction, cooler heads have prevailed. They should prevail now too. Whether the pledge violates the First Amendment's separation of church from state is a legal question. Congress has no business obstructing the courts from answering it.

That's exactly right, isn't it? We have a system of checks and balances; Congress can't suddenly decide that it's above review or reproach. It may be difficult for Republicans to deal with the consequences of freedom; they may have to someday accept equality for gays and atheists, two groups of people they apparently can't stand. But that's the way the American system is designed; it's meant to allow the majority to rule while protecting the minority from the tyranny of that majority. This bill is nothing less than an expression of the Republican desire to be tyrants. An educated electorate would see that and drive the offending party out of office. Instead, Republican House members are doing this because they think it will help them politically. Sometimes it's hard to even fathom what most voters are thinking about.