Under the Constitution, Appointed Judges Should Be Enforcing Laws Not Writing Them
September 4th, 2007H/T Immigration Watchdog for this article from
The Family Security Foundation Contributing Editor John Armor
I don’t often write about law. It’s been one of my professions for 35 years, but I have to admit the subject is boring. I don’t often accuse anyone else of being “un-American” because there’s a lot of leeway for opinion in a free country. Today I drop both restrictions. The subject is Hazleton, Pennsylvania, and the ACLU.
The ACLU recently filed a petition for Hazleton to pay it $2.4 million in fees because ACLU lawyers persuaded a U.S. District judge to strike down a series of local ordinances. Those laws intended to make it difficult for illegal aliens to live and work in that town. A precipitating event for passage of the ordinances was the murder of a local resident by an illegal alien.
Update on that: the murderer was released and is to be deported. The witness, who gave the police the murder weapon and described a confession, was “accidentally” deported and will not return. So, the murderer skates. The ACLU publicly praised the dismissal of the murder charges.
The ACLU fee petition says of the case, “Hazleton has used this Court as its laboratory. Defendant’s experimentation over the past year comes at a price.”
Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta, noting that his City has a total annual budget of only $7.9 million, calls the petition “absurd.” He added, “It illustrates the circus the ACLU brought to the case. They had over 20 attorneys sitting in the courtroom, with plenty of them doing nothing but running up the bill.Their goal was to bankrupt the city of Hazleton.”
I go further than that. I accuse the ACLU of trying to destroy the United States, piece by piece, and jurisdiction by jurisdiction. And, I accuse the federal judge in this case, James M. Munley, of being equally un-American in his ruling in the case I will, however, give the judge credit for being stupid, rather than malicious. Having made such charges, I’m obliged to back them up.
After stating our God-given rights, the Declaration of Independence recites our basic political rights, stating that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed. – That when any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it….”
The ordinances of Hazleton were passed for the health and safety of town residents. They applied only within the town. In attacking those ordinances, the ACLU also attacked both parts of that statement from the Declaration. No surprise. But here, a federal judge joined in the attack.
He is not elected. And yet, he substituted his political views for those of the people, who had just reelected their mayor by causing him to win both primaries, Republican and Democrat. There was no doubt whatsoever where the “consent of the governed” lies. On the other point, the judge assumed that he had somehow obtained the power to overrule the people.
More than a few Supreme Court Justices have claimed and used the power to amend the Constitution, stealing that right from the American people. But what does the Constitution say about that?
The only power that a District Court has over a case like this is what Congress has granted to it. See Article I, Section 1, and Section 2, clause 2. Congress has not given federal courts the power to destroy local governments. If there is any doubt about that, Congress should strip courts of any pretense of such power.
See also Article V, the amendment provisions. Power to change the Constitution is reserved to the people, through two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, plus three-fourths of the state legislatures. Not a unanimous Supreme Court, much less a contentious one-vote majority of that Court, may legitimately change the Constitution.
Article VI, Section 4, contains a guarantee that most people skip right over, yet it’s clearly violated here. “The United States shall guarantee to every State in the Union a Republican Form of Government….” What did “Republican” mean, more than a century before it became the name of a political party? It meant a government in which people elected their representatives who act for them in writing laws. If the people disagreed with those laws, they could defeat those representatives and elect others in their stead.
Today, when people use the word “democracy,” they mean “republican form of government.” Remember that some parts of our governments aren’t “democratic.” Bureaucrats generally aren’t elected. Neither are courts.
That brings us to Judge Munley. He was not elected. He cannot be defeated if he writes bad laws. That is precisely why federal judges should not be in the business of writing laws at all. Their job, under the Constitution, is to obey and enforce the laws of their jurisdiction. In this decision, an unelected judge made political decisions, which will cause harm and perhaps death to citizens who sought the protection of the law. His is an un-American decision.
This case has already been appealed, as has a similar case from Farmers Branch, Texas. Regardless of the outcomes of both cases in the Courts of Appeal, they will reach the U.S. Supreme Court, probably consolidated for decision.
If there are at least five Justices of the Court who believe the Constitution should be obeyed, not toyed with, this decision will be reversed. Self-government will be restored to Hazleton and all towns and states like it. Lastly, a fat award of fees and costs, say $20 million or so, should be assessed against the ACLU for violating the constitutional rights of the people of Hazleton, and by extension, of all Americans.
