PING!
That’s a really good point.
Federalist/Anti-Federalist ping.
Bump!
Repealing 16 and 17 would fix most of our problems in short order.
Scalia with Thomas and Alito are enough for the US Supreme Court. The other six should be dismissed post haste.
ping
Where necessary to make a regulation of interstate commerce effective, Congress may regulate even those intrastate activities that do not themselves substantially affect interstate commerce.
Justice Scalia, concurring in Raich
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In practical terms, however, outside of an Article V convention forcing them back, there is no way way that the senate would ever vote itself back under the control of the states.
They love being “free agents” of the federal government, who only need to skunk the voters in their state once each six years. Or, like in the case of John McCain, utterly destroy anyone who would dare run against him in the primary, with bottomless deep pockets from his wife and corporate cronies.
For this reason in past I have proposed a way around the problem that would address the federal and state balance, *in the judiciary branch*.
This idea is to create a Second Court of the United States, subordinate to the SCOTUS, but superior to the district courts. And it would *not* be a federal court, but a court of the individual states.
Not being a federal court, it would not determine the constitutionality of laws appealed from the district courts to the SCOTUS, but their jurisdiction. As a jurisdictional court.
Right now, federal judges all over the US *federalize* local court cases that really have nothing to do with the federal government. This is a grotesque increase in federal power at the expense of the states.
This 2nd Court could take the 8,000 or so cases appealed to the SCOTUS every year, a *huge* bottleneck, and strip out those cases that should be returned to the states as *not* federal cases. Not federal business.
If a simple majority of these 2nd court judges ruled that a case should be removed from the federal courts, it could still be appealed to the SCOTUS. But the SCOTUS would be *obligated* to cite the exact wording in the constitution, not interpretations, and not *stare decisis* (court precedent), to overturn their decision.
If a 2/3rds majority of these state judges decided that the case was a state matter, it could no longer be appealed to the SCOTUS.
The 2nd court would also have original jurisdiction on all lawsuits between the states and the federal government. Right now such suits must slowly pass through a gauntlet of federal courts, even though they can never definitively be settled short of the SCOTUS. But having the other states hear the case first, they could send a loud and strong message to the federal government and the POTUS about what they thought of their actions.
In effect, acting much like a permanent constitutional convention. More than willing to prune the size and power of the federal government as an ongoing process.
The actual composition of the court would be two judges from each state, on terms parallel to the terms of their two senators, but by law those judges would be appointed solely by secret ballot of their state legislators, with a simple majority to win. The legislators could not surrender this authority or the process of elections as their leaders would want them to do.
REPEAl the 17th AMENDMENT. It would change everything.
Regarding the ill-conceived 17th Amendment, remember this. As mentioned in related threads, not only do corrupt senators work in cahoots with the corrupt House to pass unconstitutional bills, bills which not only steal state powers and state revenues associated with those powers, but the following also happens.
Corrupt senators confirm activist justices who declare the unconstitutional legislation passed by the Senate to be constitutional!
What a racket!
The 17th Amendment needs to dissapear, and a bunch of corrupt senators along with it.
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