A solitary judicial decision was all that was necessary for many on the left to give up their charade of being terrified for our democracy.
They used to insist nobody else could uphold the rule of law, but now they’re openly questioning the point of having laws in the first place.
On Monday, a commentary written by Peter Coy and featured in the New York Times lamented the declining level of public trust in our country’s legal system.
In Opinion
“People on the losing end of Supreme Court decisions increasingly feel that justice is not being served,” Peter Coy writes. “That’s a scary situation for the high court, and for American democracy in general.” https://t.co/0YoY4iFhoY
— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 27, 2022
That is not an especially objectionable idea, nor a strange one.
Nevertheless, what is unusual is this thing Coy, as well as other Democratic liberals, are now doing, where they feign ignorance of how regulations are carried out in practice.
Limitations
According to what he wrote, “All the Supreme Court has to rely on is the recognition of its judgments as legitimate by the general people.”
In addition, Coy cited a statement made by Daniel Epps, a law professor at Washington University, who said, “The Supreme Court has no ability to enforce its judgments.”
“It does not own any kind of army. The only thing that it is able to accomplish is to create PDFs and upload them to its website.”
“The Supreme Court has no power to enforce its decisions,” Daniel Epps, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, told me on Friday. “It doesn’t have an army. The only thing it has power to do is write PDFs and put them up on its website.” https://t.co/2h7oJAF61S
— Patricia Long (@iampatricialong) June 27, 2022
Perhaps we need the geeky little CNN “fact check” man to come on and clarify how the division of powers and our government operate.
It is correct the Supreme Court does not maintain a standing army. Congress does not either. Though what they do have is the executive arm of government that ensures all laws passed by the legislature are upheld.
To imply there is no actual mechanism for enforcing the word of the Supreme Court is to say the presidency and every state are not bound by anything to carry out the word of the Supreme Court.
However, as the course of events would have it, they are connected somehow.
Up to the States
The Third Section of Article II states the president “shall take care that laws are followed to the letter, and shall commission all the authorities of the United States.”
Aside from making it very plain they are prepared to give up on American democracy as a result of the judgment of the Supreme Court to reverse Roe v. Wade, it is a bit of a puzzle as to why liberals are even speaking about this issue.
The verdict handed down by the court does not require anything.
There is nothing, strictly speaking, that needs to be enforced. Although abortion is still legal, all 50 states have given themselves the authority to regulate the procedure in any way their legislatures see fit.
If the threat is to disobey the decision of the Supreme Court, then it is not a very serious threat at all. Regulate or don’t.
It is up to the states to make sure their laws are respected, and yes, they do have mechanisms in place to do so.
However, the broader implications are taken into account. Liberals don’t care about our Constitution.
