Justice Clarence Thomas is finding increasingly creative ways to justify reshaping long-standing laws.
During a rare appearance at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, the George H.W. Bush–appointed justice said the Supreme Court should take a more critical approach to settled precedent, arguing that decided cases are not “the gospel,” ABC News reported.
Thomas, 77, compared his Supreme Court colleagues to passengers on a train, and said: ”We never go to the front to see who’s driving the train, where is it going. And you could go up there in the engine room, find it’s an orangutan driving the train, but you want to follow that just because it’s a train.”
He reasoned that some precedents were simply “something somebody dreamt up and others went along with.”
Ironically I don’t disagree with him but for completely different reasons. It’s pretty obvious he wants to use this as an excuse to do whatever he’s paid to do by the biggest bribe.
But Jefferson pushed for vast changes and “revolution” (not the violent type which honestly feels pretty naive) every generation. Because why should the rules and ideals and commitment of the dead hold back the present and future.
I have always thought precedent, when it comes to interpreting laws, should have an expiration date. If congress doesn’t pass a law to support the precedent, then it is no longer valid after that date. For constitutional interpretations, once past the expiration, a lower court can’t use it as justification anymore.
That works great and all until somebody tries to block renewal of basic human rights. Put constitutional referendums on a schedule.
Here in Sweden two consecutive elected governments have to approve changes to the constitution. Seems like another useful tool to prevent abuse.
Lower court precedence, however, sure it would be nice with expiration dates so legislature has to authorize it explicitly to keep it. You could even have boards whose responsibility is to translate precedence from courts into law proposals to be voted on.
With the US 2 party system and first past the post voting system practically nothing would ever change then. Which does mean one crazy wannabe dictator can’t do as much damage. But also means getting progressive policies pushed through would also be impossible.
But I do like that idea in theory, once we solve our 2 party problem then something like that would make a lot of sense. I don’t know how we will ever solve that, figured for sure after January 6th and COVID that a real 3rd party would gain traction? And yet here we are.