The Nutter Report........
Apr. 14th, 2011 04:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
disneydream06I guess we don't really need the Judicial Branch of the government after all......
Bachmann Wants To Strip Courts of Equal Protection Jurisdiction
posted by: Jessica Pieklo
To her credit Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is not shy about her role as a culture warrior and has come out in front of bold conservative initiatives to eradicate completely the constitutional separation of church and state.
Her latest campaign calls for stripping federal judges of jurisdiction to enforce equal protection laws. Bachmann's motivation is, of course, protecting "traditional marriage" from the nefarious gay agenda. In a speech in Iowa, Bachmann told a group of social conservatives that Congress ultimately controls the scope of Article III federal courts and can, and should, "decide what judges can rule on and what they can't."
Bachmann's proposal may be good at whipping the hard-right base into a froth, but it also gives us a nice illustration of just how radical her understanding of constitutional separation of powers really is.
Stripping federal courts of the power to hear equal protection challenges would require passing legislation that somehow removes the 14th Amendment from federal court jurisdiction--or attempts to circumvent the Amendment all together. Either option flies in the face of our notions of fundamental checks and balances, let alone embraces a vision of America that soundly rejects the democratic ideal of basic equality.
Bachmann Wants To Strip Courts of Equal Protection Jurisdiction
posted by: Jessica Pieklo
To her credit Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is not shy about her role as a culture warrior and has come out in front of bold conservative initiatives to eradicate completely the constitutional separation of church and state.
Her latest campaign calls for stripping federal judges of jurisdiction to enforce equal protection laws. Bachmann's motivation is, of course, protecting "traditional marriage" from the nefarious gay agenda. In a speech in Iowa, Bachmann told a group of social conservatives that Congress ultimately controls the scope of Article III federal courts and can, and should, "decide what judges can rule on and what they can't."
Bachmann's proposal may be good at whipping the hard-right base into a froth, but it also gives us a nice illustration of just how radical her understanding of constitutional separation of powers really is.
Stripping federal courts of the power to hear equal protection challenges would require passing legislation that somehow removes the 14th Amendment from federal court jurisdiction--or attempts to circumvent the Amendment all together. Either option flies in the face of our notions of fundamental checks and balances, let alone embraces a vision of America that soundly rejects the democratic ideal of basic equality.
