While Ted Cruz isn't the first to come up with a jurisdiction-stripping scheme for the nation's judiciary, it is still a radical idea. It's the type of idea that would get him the attention of religious right conservatives ... likely lots of positive attention from them. Many of
these folks have been apoplectic over the idea that the SCOTUS will likely rule in favor of marriage equality this year.
From Think Progress:
In the likely event that the Supreme Court brings marriage equality to all 50 states this summer, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) wants to strip the entire federal judiciary of its power to hear cases brought by same-sex couples seeking the right to marry, according to the Dallas Morning News.
Cruz’s remarks came during a speech in Sioux City, Iowa, where the tea party senator also praised the original, more discrimination-friendly version of Indiana’s new “religious liberty” law, and claimed that a cabal of liberals and big business endorsed a “radical gay marriage agenda” which says that “any person of faith is subject to persecution if they dare” disagree with marriage equality.
Jurisdiction stripping is a controversial idea that has occasionally been proposed by social conservatives seeking to neuter court decisions that they disapprove of. In 1981, for example, lawmakers introduced a total of 22 bills seeking to remove the Supreme Court’s power to hear cases involving “prayer in the schools, abortion, school busing, a males-only draft and state court rulings.” Reacting to Sen. Jesse Helms’s (R-NC) proposal to eliminate the Court’s authority to hear school prayer cases, Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) claimed that the bill was akin to “outlawing the Supreme Court.”
It seems to me that we run into a separation of powers problem here.
From MSNBC:
Whatever one thinks of marriage equality, court-stripping is itself a ridiculous idea. The constitutional principles of “separation of powers” hasn’t disappeared just yet, so the idea that the legislative branch will dictate to the courts what kind of cases judges are allowed to hear is more than a little crazy – it undermines the very idea of an independent judiciary.
And it sure as heck isn’t “constitutional conservatism.” Indeed, it’s effectively the congressional version of “legislating from the bench” – Cruz and his cohorts want to adjudicate from the legislature.
Congress has never actually passed a court-stripping scheme – we can only speculate about the constitutional crisis it would invite – and it probably won’t start with marriage equality. But the fact that Ted Cruz, a presidential hopeful, would even endorse such an idea speaks to just how radical a senator he is.