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The most dangerous man in U.S.
By MARTIN DYCKMAN
Published August 21, 2005
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. - Tom DeLay's performance during last week's "Justice Sunday" should have dispelled anyone's doubt that he's the most dangerous man in America. I refer to his appalling statements that the Supreme Court lacks the power to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional and that this is a "fact, understood by every high school civics student . . ."
As an answer to a question, that would flunk any candidate for naturalization. But this guy is House Republican leader, for goodness' sake.
What makes him dangerous is the well-settled fact that ideological tyrants, whether secular or religious, have in common an inability to coexist with an independent judiciary. The framers of the Constitution had that in mind when they carefully prescribed the powers of the president and the Congress but only loosely delineated those of the court.
They did leave a potentially dangerous loophole for Congress to restrict the court's jurisdiction - that is, the kind of cases it could hear - but for more than two centuries Congress has been wise enough not to abuse it. Hearing DeLay, it's time to worry.
The Federalist Papers give the lie to what he said. In Number 80, Alexander Hamilton wrote that it "seems scarcely to admit of controversy" that the federal judicial jurisdiction should include all acts of Congress, "passed in pursuance of their just and constitutional powers of legislation . . ." That implies the power to declare them unconstitutional, which has been thought settled since Thomas Jefferson's presidency by the great Federalist Chief Justice John Marshall's decision in Marbury vs. Madison.
In Federalist 78, writing in support of lifetime appointment of judges (the policy then of most of the states), Hamilton described it as an "excellent barrier to the encroachments and oppressions of the representative body." Referring to the constitutional restrictions on Congress, such as the ban on ex post facto laws, Hamilton reasoned that "(L)imitations of this kind can be preserved in practice in no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void."
"Without this," he explained, "all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing."
That DeLay's expertise is pest control, not constitutional law, does not excuse his appalling nonsense. Whatever he is, he's not stupid, and the Federalist Papers were written to be read by all literate citizens, not just by lawyers.
We could do worse, however, than to have him running Congress. What if, God forbid, he were a high school civics teacher?
* * *
Charles E. Wilson, having resigned as president of General Motors to become President Eisenhower's secretary of defense, needed to assure skeptical senators that he would not have a conflict of interest involving the company.
"For years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa," he said. "The difference did not exist."
It became one of the most misquoted statements in history, usually truncated as "What's good for General Motors is good for the country." That would be a difference. Unfortunately for the country, it seems to describe the present administration's thinking.
Gasoline has passed $2.50 a gallon, heading for $3, and spot shortages and long lines are likely to follow. Energy pricing has begun to devour corporate profits and stock values, as Wal-Mart acknowledged last week, along with household budgets and the survival prospects of several airlines. Crude oil supply is not the primary problem, though it will be soon enough. Whatever the other reasons, which include refinery capacity, Middle Eastern terrorism, hurricanes and plain old greed, energy prices could do to the economy what the stock market did in 1929. We desperately need a comprehensive national energy policy that does not turn on simply pumping more oil and gas from wildlife preserves.
But the Bush administration accepted an energy bill scandalously short on conservation or renewable sources, and is expected to exclude gas-guzzling Hummers and other large sport utility vehicles when it releases its long-delayed fuel efficiency proposals in the next week or so. According to the New York Times, the administration believes that to include the largest SUVs in the averages would be too hard on Detroit.
It would be good for the country, of course, and ultimately for General Motors as well. If energy prices and supply are allowed to destroy the economy, just how many cars of any size do they think they would sell?
Martin Dyckman's e-mail address is dyckman@sptimes.com
[Last modified August 19, 2005, 23:32:02]
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