Mediaboss Marketing

Visitors walk outside the Supreme Court building on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Feb. 21, 2022. Members of high court (inset) pose for a group photo Oct. 7, 2022 | Associated Press file photos, St. George News

OPINION In response to the recent Letter to the Editor published on St. George News about the proposed Judiciary Act, support for court packing shows a severe lack of comprehension regarding our Constitution and the separation of power.

The writer laments that current Supreme Court rulings do not reflect the will of the people. Perhaps the public education system needs to be teaching U.S. Government instead of gender theory, considering such a statement shows dangerous ignorance regarding checks, balances and the purpose of judicial review.

It is the elected representatives who make up Congress, the legislative branch, who are to write constitutional legislation that hopefully represents the will of the people. The system of checks and balances leaves it up to the judicial branch to interpret whether or not such legislation is constitutional. Obviously, not every act of central power is protected in our Constitution, nor should it be, considering such a stance is a slip n slide into federal tyranny.

The ideological issue is this: Conservatives are what are traditionally known to be strict constructionists, while liberals tend to be loose constructionists. That is to say, strict constructionists interpret the language of the Constitution within its historical context, intent and explicit language; while loose constructionists interpret the founding document arbitrarily and can be framed as relatively good for the country, even if the Constitution does not explicitly allow it.

Here is a fundamental issue with loose constructionists good is entirely subjective to personal values and social ideology. For example, one day, a loose constructionist court can determine that overpopulation is a threat to the prosperity of our Union and thus determine that it is good for Congress to enact legislation that would limit reproduction to state-approved families. Within the explicit context of the Constitution, there is no circumstance where a strict constructionist court would allow such tyranny.

Another issue is that liberals tend to believe that the central government has to be the solution to all problems, while conservatives believe that problems tend to exist because of personal choices, thus can be solved by personal choices. Conservatives believe you should turn to yourself, your family and your local community/charity before you look to the government to bail you out.

Regarding the writers statements regarding recent Supreme Court decisions: First, they claimed that the Supreme Court gutted voting rights. Since he or she never actually states what cases they are fear-mongering on, readers can only speculate the decisions in reference. Allen v. Milligan was decided in June of this year, which affirmed a lower court ruling that Alabamas congressional maps for 2020 likely violated the Voting Rights Act, thus requiring Alabama to redraw congressional maps by the 1st of October. If anything, this decision errs more to liberal favor. Personally, I think it is a terrifying precedent set that states must district according to racial demographics rather than statistically reviewed voting patterns.

Secondly, the writer complains about the court opening the floodgates to unlimited corporate money within our elections. This is another complaint that I am very confused as to what the writer is referring to. There is a 2010 case, Citizens United vs. FEC, where the court ruled that prohibiting corporate and union independent expenditures violated the First Amendment. The dissent in this case essentially wrote that the potential for taking bribes was far greater than the First Amendment.

If your fear is corruption, then we need to constantly hold our elected representatives up to ethical standards as citizens rather than infringe on First Amendment rights as a preventative measure for potential corruption. Dont expect the government to hold itself accountable. If you think your representatives are voting solely in the interests of corporate donors and not their constituents, vote them out. This is also why we have laws against taking bribes and we have ethical standards in Congress. The onus is on you, the constituency, to pay attention.

Thirdly, the writer whines about the courts overturning what is broadly referred to as gun safety laws. My assumption is that she is referencing the Bruen decision, which ruled that requiring a state-approved reason for wanting to conceal carry was unconstitutional. The wording in the 2nd amendment is very clear the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed. The use of the term militia also implies bearing arms extends to the public domain.

The New York law that was struck down required citizens to have proper cause to conceal carry. Shall-issue permitting requires applicants for firearms to satisfy objective criteria, such as a background check; the court did not take issue with this. What the court deemed unconstitutional was the may-issue policy that meant your right to arm yourself against tyranny was dependent on local authorities agreeing with your reason for wanting to own a gun.

Fourthly, regarding the Dobbs decision and the overturning of Roe v. Wade sending abortion back to the states the writers personal turmoil is simply a result of their social ideology and holds no constitutional weight. Abortion was loosely interpreted as a personal liberty when Roe was initially decided. When you disingenuously simplify abortion to merely the choice between parenthood or not, it is very easy to then view it as a personal liberty. However, when you are honest about the conversation, you realize abortion is not simply choosing to have children, but it is medically intervening in the life of ones own child who already exists in the womb.

The Constitution does not define liberty, and it would be negligent for the justices to use their own arbitrary feelings of what should be included in the word to define it for the country. They instead interpreted what the founding fathers meant when they wrote the Constitution, and to do so, they examined abortion in its historical context. Prior to Roe v Wade in 1973, abortion was overwhelmingly criminalized; such a pattern of criminalization shows that abortion was not considered essential to American liberty. To add to this, the Jackson Womens Health Organization attempted to prove that America had a pattern of allowing abortion prior to quickening before Roe as a way to show the historical context in allowing abortion.

What is quickening? It is approximately 15 weeks gestation when the mother can feel her son or daughter moving inside the womb. Think about this: why would quickening be the cut-off point for ending a pregnancy during a time when we lacked prenatal technology? It was the point in fetal development where mothers would objectively know that their childs life in the womb had begun. Considering modern technology, Jackson Womens Health Organization may have inadvertently provided the historical context that when human life begins has always been important to criminalizing abortion, thus laying the groundwork for broader abortion bans.

To be clear, the court did not ban abortion, it ruled that abortion is not constitutionally protected and thus should be left to the states.

With all things said, the Supreme Court is doing exactly what the founding fathers intended it to do interpret the meaning and constitutionality of legislation and federal power. Citizens should be scared for their rights when the court is full of loose constructionists who lack objectivity and arbitrarily decide what they think is relatively good for the public.

Submitted by MELANIE COX, St. George.

Letters to the Editor are not the product of St. George News, its editors, staff or news contributors. The matters stated and opinions given are the responsibility of the person submitting them. They do not reflect the product or opinion of St. George News and are given only light edit for technical style and formatting.

Letters to the Editor are received from the public and are not the product of St.George News, its editors, staff or contributors. The matters stated and opinions given are strictly the responsibility of the person submitting them; they do not reflect the product or opinion of St. George News. Letters to the Editor, op-eds, and other news matters may be submitted for consideration to St. George News via email to: [emailprotected]

View post:
Letter to the Editor: Packing the Supreme Court with liberals would undermine our Constitution - St George News