Those who read my blog, or Scott's Gamer's Nook, or both, know that we tend to disagree on a number of political issues. His alarm over this bill, though, appears to be something with which we can agree.

The bill is basically simple. It:

• Removes from the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and federal District Courts any appeals or suits related to any law, office, or individual in government having to do with "acknowledgement of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government."
  
  One strongly suspect that the God in question is the one mentioned in the Ten Commandments, since Ten Commandments cases are among the ones (alongside "Under God" cases) this bill is designed to address.

• Removes the need for state and local judiciaries to consider federal rulings that wouldn't have been applicable under the above new provision.

• Makes acting in contravention to any of the above an impeachable offense.

The law also prevents courts from using anything but "constitutional law and English common law" in considering the constitutionality of things. The immediate desire seems to be to keep courts from considering international and foreign law in their decisions (which is not necessarily a bad thing), but the way it's written, it could throw out any number of other precedents and administrative actions; this part is a lot less clear to me.)

The Constitution (article III, section 2) allows Congress some control over what the jurisdiction of the federal courts are, including the Supremes (emphasis mine):

In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.

So it sounds constitutional. Is it a good idea? Hell, no. Folks on either side of the aisle have bitched about the judiciary, particularly over the last century, getting in the way of the way they think things should be. FDR tried to stuff the bench to get his way. Nomination battles for the judiciary have gotten increasingly partisan and ideological. Any judge who rules against something that someone thinks should be the case is accused of judicial activism.

Frankly, I think that's a good thing. It's a good brake on malarky like the Ten Commandments controversies. The selective legislative cherry-picking of what to exclude from federal court purview strikes me as a horribly dangerous precedent, on general principles.

While I don't think this is a march toward theocracy per se (was the US a theocracy a century ago, when nobody would have blinked at a 10 Commandments display in front of city hall) nor A Handmaid's Tale, I do think it's a march away from the tolerance and inclusiveness that has made the US a beacon in the world.

And, of course, it has the possibility of backfiring. After all, today it would let Roy Moore put the Ten Commandments in the courthouse. Tomorrow, it could let someone put a big inscription, "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is His Prophet" over the town hall. Fundamentalists who think that sort of thing is impossible bely the need for these sorts of laws to be passed.

It may be that I am overreacting to nothing (for one thing, is this bill likely to go anywhere, or is it just a sop for the Religious Right?). And it may be that there's a less alarming interpretation of it all than this one.

But remind me to drop a letter to one of my senators, Wayne Allard, to register my objections to his support of this bill. Because, damn, it's just a bad idea in substance as well as in nature.

Filed under :: Politics & Law