“At the establishment of our Constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means provided for their removal gave them a freehold and irresponsibility in office; that their decisions, seeming to concern individual suitors only, pass silent and unheeded by the public at large; that these decisions nevertheless become law by precedent, sapping by little and little the foundations of the Constitution and working its change by construction before any one has perceived that that invisible and helpless worm has been busily employed in consuming its substance. In truth, man is not made to be trusted for life if secured against all liability to account.” –Thomas Jefferson to A. Coray, 1823.
The Supreme Court has suddenly become hyperactive even as political action by President Obama and Congress has fizzled out almost entirely.
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But, while the first and second branches of the federal government have fallen into quiescence, it’s springtime at the third branch and its justices are delivering decisions on big, controversial issues such as campaign finance and affirmative action. By the end of June, the justices will rule on the constitutionality of Obama- Care’s birth-control mandate.
This spate comes on top of other landmark decisions during the Obama presidency — striking-down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), demolishing restrictions on corporate and union campaign donations in the Citizens United case, and green-lighting ObamaCare itself in 2012.
