Williams v. Wal-mart
A poster by the name of "a former european," who goes all the way back to my days at The Other Blog, has often argued with me about the power of judges in our current political climate. A hypothetical he often throws out is what could we do if the Surpeme Court decided that slavery was OK, despite the 13th Amendment. I never really saw the hypothetical as useful.
Well, I must now stand corrected. It appears that a former european was right.
In Williams v. Wal-mart, the 6-3 Surpeme Court upheld Wal-mart's slavery employment contract.
Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas all dissented. Writing what is certainly the
shortest dissenting opinion in the history of the Court, Scalia wrote only “I
can’t believe they let these idiots in the room with me.
posted by KJ @ 10:31 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
It's like shooting fish in a barrel.
afe,
You still can't impose slavery without legislative authority. Kelo was bad, but at least all it did was grant power to the state that the constitution, I believe, had denied it. When the Court is MOST dangerous is when it takes an issue away from the people without proper justification. It can be right or wrong in either case (giving too much, or too little, power to the legislature). But giving too much power always gives us a way out -- we can win the political battle. And Kelo is an example of that. There is a lot of legislation at the local and state (and even Federal level) about this sise.
(ASIDE: afe, you do recognize the irony here. When we discussed Establishment clause cases in the past, even where we agreed, your argument started with the proposition that the Establishment clause only applied to Congress and not the states. Well, the 5th Amendment does too. It is the same "incorporation" under the 14th Amendment that even gave rise to a U. S. Constitutional issue in Kelo. Without the incorporation, the U.S. Constitution had no applicability to Kelo, except for purely "process" reasons.
Yes, both example are likely (Mass definitely, I can't say on the state issue b/c who knows what the state constitution says) abuse.
But my point was only, some abuses are better than others. I would rather the Judge not strike bad laws and give me the chance to win over the legislature than the judge order/strike laws not constitutionally mandated, thus taking the issue away from the legislature. It isn't that one is and one is not a "wrong." It is a question of degree. And the point on slavery as you define it is the lesser evil (in the sense that the Court AND the legislature, not just the Court, would have to allow it for it to return).
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