SCALIA TODAY-PG. 36 OF DOMA DECISION...DISSENTING... Yet the plaintiff and the Gov- ernment agree entirely on what should happen in this lawsuit. They agree that the court below got it right; and they agreed in the court below that the court below that one got it right as well. What, then, are we doing here? The answer lies at the heart of the jurisdictional portion of today’s opinion, where a single sentence lays bare the majority’s vision of our role. The Court says that we have the power to decide this case because if we did not, then our “primary role in determining the constitutionality of a law” (at least one that “has inflicted real injury on a plaintiff ”) would “become only secondary to the President’s.” Ante, at 12. But wait, the reader wonders—Windsor won below, and so cured her injury, and the President was glad to see it. True, says the majority, but judicial review must march on regardless, lest we “undermine the clear dictate of the separation-of-powers principle that when an Act of Congress is alleged to conflict with the Constitution, it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial depart- ment to say what the law is.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). That is jaw-dropping. It is an assertion of judicial su- premacy over the people’s Representatives in Congress and the Executive. It envisions a Supreme Court standing (or rather enthroned) at the apex of government, empow- ered to decide all constitutional questions, always and every- where “primary” in its role.... WE ENCOURAGE YOU TO VIEW THE ENTIRE OPINION ON THIS LANDMARK DECISION BY THE SUPREME COURT TODAY. JUSTICE SCALIA HAS MUCH MORE TO SAY ON THE MATTER. supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-307_g2bh.pdf
Posted on: Wed, 26 Jun 2013 21:44:46 +0000
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