PRESTOPUNDIT

William Kristol et al on the imperial Supreme Court. Quotable:

Today’s judiciary really is “imperial” and, to a remarkable degree, extra-constitutional. The courts have done serious damage to the American political and social order. They therefore pose a major political problem. But this is a problem that defenders of the constitutional and political order—call us conservatives—have so far failed to deal with successfully.

The failure goes back at least three decades. By the mid-1970’s, the “imperial judiciary” was already understood to be a problem, not just on the far reaches of the political Right, or among the constitutionally fastidious, but in (more or less) mainstream circles like this journal. The federal courts were in the process of imposing a disastrous educational and social policy of forced busing all around the country, based on a claim of an amazingly broad power to make up for alleged past wrongs. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court had in 1972 outlawed the death penalty as it was then administered, and in 1973 had struck down the abortion laws of all 50 states—both startlingly extra-constitutional actions.

But this moment of opportunity to curb the courts was lost ...